Pieces of Puzzles
by Ripper101
Summary: Toby was always fond of a good story and Sarah always indulged him. But fantasy can't be pleasant when it becomes reality. And who's to say reality is everything it's cracked up to be? Warnings for slash, potential violence & dark themes that may offend.
1. Coming or Going

Disclaimer: I don't assume to own any part of 'Labyrinth', either as a product or as the movie itself. I hope this offers no offence to those who do.

Pairing: Jareth/Toby slash.

Author's Note: This does start out slowly, just in terms of the slash itself. There will, in fact, be no significant romantic content in this story for a while. Trust me, when it does happen it will be significant! That being said, I do have warnings for slash, violence, and general darkness. It might not seem so dark now, but, once again, I do have plans for later chapters.

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Sarah grinned and held out her arms. "Kiss me, you fool," she teased. Then she wrapped him up in her arms and her coat and squeezed him tight against her.

Toby muffled a squeak of indignation in her collar but resigned himself when Sarah's high laugh sounded in his right ear. He caught sight of his parents over Sarah's shoulder and they looked upset, almost fearful.

Sarah put him down finally, still laughing that slightly manic laugh as she rapped out questions he couldn't actually understand because she was mixing up her words and talking too fast.

"Sarah, you don't look so good," he cut in, "Are you okay?"

She rolled her green eyes at him. "I'm fine, Tobes. Really. Southeastern Water Supply is a ratty place to work at this time of year but that's about it. But look at you! All grown up these days, I see."

"I'm only twelve," he said self-deprecatingly, shrugging his thin shoulders, "When did you get home?"

"Just got here," Sarah prattled.

Her suitcases were still in the hall and Karen finally snapped into action. "Toby, could you help your father take Sarah's things upstairs, please? Sarah, would you like a cup of coffee or something?"

"No, thanks. But chocolate would be good."

"Sure, if I have some left," Karen said, putting a hand on the young woman's shoulders, "We're so happy to have you back for Christmas, dear."

"I'm happy to be back. Oh, I need to pick up some wrapping paper. I just haven't had the time to get the gifts organized. Is that okay?"

"That's fine. I still have some paper left but we can always pick up some more. Go on, Robbie, take the cases up."

Robert kissed his daughter's cheek and valiantly attacked the suitcases. There was really just the one big one and that the one he had to lug up a flight of stairs. The smaller carryall was left to his son, who almost fell over backwards trying to balance the weight.

Sarah's room wasn't Sarah's room anymore. Now she used the spare room, with the light cream wallpaper and the neat little double bed decked out in what Karen fondly called 'eggshell blue'.

Toby thankfully abandoned the carryall at the door and then nudged it aside with his foot so no one could fall over it. He caught his breath and looked around, catching sight of the bath salts on the dresser from Sarah's last visit six months ago.

"Dad, is Sarah okay?" Toby asked anxiously, "She sounds a little… strange."

His dad glanced at him from the corner of his eye but fidgeted with the combination lock on the suitcase. "She's fine, Toby. Just tired."

"Does Mom have anything to eat around here?"

"I don't know, son. Let's go ask her, shall we?"

Father and son clattered down the stairs one after the other, stomping into the kitchen to find the two women making coffee and putting out biscuits.

Toby snorted at the biscuits and dived into the fridge. He emerged a moment later triumphantly holding cheese. "Sandwich," he replied to his mother's unasked question.

Karen nodded in resignation and smiled as he began to bang drawers and cupboard doors. She was blissfully happy with the state of chaos her son left in her home; the mothering instinct burned fiercely in her bosom. But then she happened to look at Sarah as if to say, 'he's such a dear boy' and caught the look of furtive fear as the young woman stared at the door.

Karen shared a worried look with Robert.

Toby was oblivious. "Hey, Sarah. Want a sandwich?" he called out cheerfully.

"Sure, kiddie." Sarah looked surreptitiously at her watch. "So, what's the gossip since I've been away?"

"Harold's Old Gardening Shed closed last month," Robert said, "The owner died. It was very sad."

"What, Harold's? Where we used to get our roses? Mom loved those roses!"

"It was terribly sad," Karen agreed, putting down her cup, "Harold's was the last gardening store in the area. All we have left is the florist, really."

"What about Grow n' Grow? Don't they sell cut flowers?" Sarah asked.

Karen made a face and shook her head. "Their plants always die too quickly. Well, it's either the store or the florists."

"The florists charge the earth," Sarah complained, "Thanks, Tobes. Er, is this a cheese sandwich or a cheese mess with a bit of bread thrown in for good luck?"

"Eat it or die," he said bluntly.

She grinned at him and bit into her 'cheese mess'. "Not so bad." She washed down the mouthful with chocolate and hummed appreciatively. "You know, it's so good to be home for a bit. Things have been stressful lately."

There was nothing to say to that. Sarah didn't volunteer any more information and she looked so tense that no one wanted to ask. At least, not so soon.

"How's Agnes?" Toby asked.

Agnes was Sarah's flatmate.

"She's fine. She sent a Christmas card. I'll bring it down after I unpack." Sarah waved vaguely upstairs and then nibbled at her sandwich again as if she needed to occupy her mouth.

"And the Cat?"

"The Cat hasn't been back since Thanksgiving. I think the turkey we made finally scared it away."

Karen shuddered. "I hate cats," she complained, "And that Cat was horrible. It was a misbegotten little runt of a thing."

"It was kind of cool," Toby reminisced.

Sarah didn't seem to be paying attention. She had frozen, her sandwich still an inch from her mouth as she stared at the door. Waiting for something. Pale. With her green eyes enormous in her astonishingly thin face.

Toby felt a cold wave rush through him. Instinctively he looked to his mother.

She bobbed her head imperiously to the door.

The scrape of his chair on the linoleum startled Sarah out of her haze. "Hey, Tobes. Where are you going?"

"I've got, er…"

Karen leaned forward and put her hand firmly over Sarah's. "I think we need to talk, dear. Toby, go on to your room. I'll come get you when we're done."

Toby fled.

He had Sarah's old room, now, up at the top of the house, under the roof. There were clothes on the chair in the corner and a desk and a single bed with plain brown sheets because he'd strenuously objected to action figure bedclothes after he turned eleven.

He didn't feel so very old, any more. In fact, he felt just a little too young.

He changed, swiftly. Pulled on sweats and a t-shirt. Socks to keep his suddenly cold feet warm. And Lancelot.

Toby took a lot of trouble to be as grown-up as he could be. He didn't like action figures because, as he thought of it, only babies played make-believe. And he didn't let his mom buy his clothes because he knew what he wanted and he knew where to get it. Lancelot was different. Lancelot lived under his bed. Toby only pulled him out when he really needed to, but he figured that now was one of the times he needed to. Who knew Sarah could be so weird? Toby hoped it was nothing serious.

An hour later Sarah knocked on the door of his room and came in hesitantly, waiting in the doorway until he looked up and she knew it was alright.

"Homework?" she asked, pointing to the book on the desk.

He nodded, grimacing at her so she could commiserate and laugh. Toby liked Sarah when she laughed. He had no clue what to say when she was sad and serious. They didn't operate on serious. Their world was a play-world, built when staying home with Sarah meant romping in the living room pretending to have adventures in the enchanted forest.

A little queer, perhaps, but then he'd been a kid. Fairies were easy when he was a kid.

Sarah did smile, but the serious look didn't leave her green eyes.

The wildness was out of them slightly, and Toby was too young to place the dead, calm glaze in them now.

"Karen said I scared you," Sarah began slowly. She scratched her head and looked at the floor. "I didn't mean to. Things have been kind of difficult recently. I was just so happy to be home, you know. I wanted to forget everything else. I was trying to."

Toby held his breath because Sarah was speaking as if she was exhausted and talking to herself more than to him.

But then she looked up and Toby coughed, looking back at his book.

"Toby, I'm probably going to have to leave quite soon," she said unexpectedly, "I don't expect I'll get a lot of time to let you know when, so I'm going to give you a present. Keep it very safe. It's yours anyway, but I was waiting to give it to you when you were older. Anyway, guess you're old enough now, right?"

She got up and put a box down in front of him.

He could see her hand as it came into view before him. It was a decent hand, nice and shapely. The nails were short and neat with white half-moons in the pink. The skin was soft, freshly washed and still damp. Then the hand left his direct gaze and he felt it ruffle his hair on its way back.

There was a pause as he stared uselessly at the box.

"Well, I guess you can open it later," Sarah remarked.

The light humour was back, needling at him as if all of this wasn't completely strange. But then again, it wasn't all that strange, was it? Perfectly logical- Sarah was tired and had a problem, and maybe she'd need to leave sooner than expected for some vacation time on her own and she was giving him a present now instead of waiting for later. Easy!

So Toby relaxed and looked back at Sarah as he scrabbled at the box in front of him. It was flat, like the kind his mother stored the silver serving spoons in, and it was dark wood inside with a thick cushion just on the bottom.

Toby hadn't known what to expect so he hadn't really any expectations. What he found, though, did surprise him.

The object lying there was a necklace of sorts. He couldn't think of what else to call it. It was silver-looking, long and coiled up, with a sort of arrow thing as a pendant.

"You got me a chain?" he ventured, prodding it with his fingers.

"I didn't really get it for you," Sarah said, "It was kind of given to you. When you were a baby. Look, Toby, not to scare you or anything but your Mom and Dad don't know about it. Someone who helped me when I was a girl gave this specifically to you. I didn't know how to explain it to Dad and I was terrified Karen would throw me out if she found out some strange guy was giving her precious baby boy presents, so I took it for safe keeping. You can't tell them."

"What?" Toby spun around, "You mean this is a big, deep, dark secret I'm not supposed to tell Mom and Dad about?"

Sarah nodded earnestly. "Toby, you can't tell anyone."

"Really? No one? No one at all?" He squinted a blue-eyed glare at her while she squirmed in worry that she'd said too much and would now get in trouble, and then he broke into a grin. "Cool! I love secrets. Who was the guy?" A thought struck him. "He wasn't some creepy old guy who loved babies a little too much, was he?"

"Not exactly," Sarah sniggered, throwing her mind back to the night she'd found the medallion in Toby's crib, clutched in his chubby fist.

"Then who?"

Sarah looked at the medallion in its sort-of luxurious box and twisted her fingers behind her back as she thought how best to answer that question. "We-ell, it's not really clear. He was good to you, and I think he'll come meet you himself one of these days. That medallion was pretty important to him. I think. He might even ask for it back, I don't know. All I know is, he left it for you and I'm not going to be around very long so I should give it to you like he wanted."

Toby had a lot of questions, most of which started with 'why' and 'who' but some of which started with 'I don't understand'. But what was the point? Sarah looked exhausted and she was swaying on her feet, her eyes heavy.

"Thanks," he said, grinning cheerfully, hoping to put her mind at rest.

She smiled back at him and then, much to Toby's horror, she leaned down and kissed his forehead. Her lips were hot, dry and hard. Then she vanished out of the door, almost running in her haste.

Toby looked from the door of his bedroom to the box lying on his desk. Shrugging, he eventually just shut it up and stuck it under his mattress for safekeeping.


	2. Morning Blues

Author's Notes: It's so good to be back! I know this story might be a bit off-colour in terms of writing for the moment, and a little slow to start, but bear with me. A lot of 'pieces' need to be put into place before the picture clears up. I didn't title this story for nothing, you know!

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Sarah couldn't sleep that night. She hadn't been able to sleep for too many nights now, but this night in particular she was really keyed up.

Coming home had seemed the best plan at the time. It was a small town, safely away from her life in the big city and out of the way of the main streets. Whoever was following her would be seen here. Anything strange that happened was sure to have some sort of a witness.

But she'd failed to consider the risk she was putting her family under.

Karen and her Dad weren't prepared to face the things she had seen. What would happen when they first saw a goblin? Or when one of the strange men followed them to work and just stayed there, standing outside the building. How would they react when they were watched every day for the next four months? When the stress of someone chasing them made them reckless and feckless and all sorts of tense.

It had got so bad for her she'd left her job. Would her Dad need to do that?

And she really wished she hadn't given Toby the medallion. It wasn't time. She could feel it. He didn't know the story, so he wouldn't recognize what it was, but she did. Even if she didn't really know why He'd left it behind in the first place. But it was a sign for something and Sarah didn't want Toby to be put into situations that he wasn't ready for.

Finally giving up, Sarah got out of bed at five in the morning and got dressed.

The kitchen was empty as she got herself a cup of coffee. No one else was awake so she kept the noise to a minimum. She wouldn't have minded some company but in the circumstances, she felt it was better she reasoned it out for herself.

At least Karen had a neat kitchen. It was restful sitting in a clean room, with everything in easy reach. Sarah felt cheered by it.

And then she fell asleep.

She dreamed strange dreams. In one of them, she was dangling over a body of water, holding onto the Gods knew what, her toes almost touching the bubbles that popped and wheezed on the silvery surface. In another, she saw the goblins and the men, both banded around her, appearing and disappearing in a mall as she tried on dresses, for no other reason than that she needed to.

Her dad woke her up at about six fifteen.

"Sarah, wake up," he said urgently, "Are you alright?"

She jumped out of her chair and collapsed on the floor. "What?"

"Sarah! Why are you down here? Are you ill? Is something wrong?" Robert asked anxiously.

"Wrong? I couldn't sleep. I was too keyed up. I guess I finally nodded off, huh?" She giggled a little and picked herself painfully off the floor. "Oof!"

"Did you hurt yourself?"

"Stiff neck," she excused, rubbing it, "What are you doing up?"

"Work."

"Right. Sorry."

"Well, someone has to pay the phone bills," Robert grinned, "Listen, Karen's taking a week off work soon. She's got some vacation time saved up and she needs to use it. She wants to go to Chicago and I was hoping you could go with her."

"Chicago?" Sarah echoed, "Whatever for? She doesn't have family there. And what about Toby?"

"It's only a few days. Toby and I will be fine."

Sarah narrowed her eyes in thought and then smiled reluctantly as she read beneath the casual invitation. "Dad, if I need to talk to someone, I can go to Mom," she pointed out, "Karen and I don't really have much in common. I go out shopping for books and trinkets; Karen likes business suits. It's never going to work."

"No, no," he insisted, putting his arm around her, "It's not like that. I just think you need some time out. So does Karen. She's beginning to get ragged around the edges and I just thought you'd be company for each other. My two best girls, eh? And who knows, you might find you've got more in common than you realize."

"Dad, I don't think it's a good idea. I like Karen but we don't really… click."

"So try, Sarah. It'll be good for both of you."

He really wanted that, Sarah noticed. He was never normally this pushy about her relationship with Karen. He'd accepted their limitations and they'd learned to deal together. But Robert was really not going to take no for an answer this time, not without an outright mutiny at hand.

Sarah hedged her bets- "I'll think about it, Dad."

"Good girl." He kissed her forehead and gave her shoulders another squeeze. "Alright, I've got to get going. Put the coffee on, would you? I need to get my things together."

He was always running late. Sarah knew the score. She put the coffee up to percolate and by the time it was almost done, she was sitting at the table with her father while Karen wandered into the kitchen with her hair down and her eyelids heavy. Karen was not a morning person.

"'Morning, Sarah," she mumbled, going straight for the cups, "Hi, sweetheart." She kissed the top of her husband's curly head in passing and got the sugar. "Why are you up so early, Sarah?"

"Am I in the way?" Sarah asked with a smile.

Karen tossed her a sleepy, fondly annoyed look. "Not in the morning, dear. I'm not fully functioning yet."

"I couldn't sleep," Sarah said, "The, er, Lathams' porch light stays on all night, now, does it?"

"Betty Latham thinks it will keep burglars away," Karen giggled, "They put it in two months ago."

"More like two years," Robert grunted, "It takes a bit of getting used to. You want to share Toby's room for a few days? The tree keeps his room dark."

"Isn't it a dead tree?" Sarah asked, remembering the conversations the last time she'd come down. From the look on Karen's face, she could decipher how the conversations had finally ended. "Dad, you still haven't called the guy, have you?"

"I'm not the one who makes the phone calls in this house," Robert protested.

"You said you would," Karen sniffed, "I would have called him last year but Sarah, you know your father. He wanted to wait, see if we could save it. The girl at Harold's took one look at that tree last summer and said we should take it down before winter. And look! It's almost winter and the tree is still up."

"Karen, you can call Fred any time. When I get home I don't want to talk to any more people," Robert groaned, "You know that!"

"Oh, and what do I do all day? Sew a fine seam? I work too, Robbie, and then I come home and make dinner. The least you can do is make a phone call."

Sarah winced. The fight was actually getting real. Feeling more than a little guilty for starting it in the first place, she cleared her throat to get their attention and said sweetly, "Why don't I call Fred this morning? I'm home. I'll drive Toby to school, call Fred and make dinner. Everyone gets a break. How's that?"

"You came here to get a rest, dear," Karen said warningly, "You shouldn't have to come down and do your father's dirty work."

Robert sighed and shook his head. "I'm going. I don't need to stay here and get grief from my wife."

Karen caught his arm just as he strode past her to the back door. She kissed his cheek and whispered, "Have a good day," and then sent him off.

Robert softened a little and nodded. Then left.

Karen sighed and sat down. "Maybe I was a little harsh," she admitted.

Sarah wisely didn't reply.

"But he makes me so mad! I work too, and I do almost everything else in the house. The most he does is garden a little on weekends," Karen complained, "I cook, I clean, I do laundry. Does he help? No! Why should I make the phone call?"

Sarah sighed and waved vaguely at the phone on the counter. "Look, I'm home. I'll do it this morning. Fred can come any time, I'll let him in and no one needs to bother about it any more. I'm happy to do it, really."

"Alright." Karen happened to glance at the clock. And shrieked, "Toby! Oh, we're going to be late! Toby!"

She left the kitchen at a jog and Sarah rolled her eyes. Neither her father nor her stepmother had any sense of punctuality. And Toby was probably doomed to be just as bad the older he got. She got up as well, wordlessly getting a bowl and the cereal. She even got the milk out and put it on the table.

Just in time. Toby staggered in with his collar up in the back, muttering about conspiracies to keep kids from getting any proper sleep and sank down in front of the bowl with nothing more than a half-hearted grunt in Sarah's direction. He shoveled cereal down his throat and staggered out of the room again.

Sarah put the bowl in the sink, the milk in the fridge and the cereal in the cupboard.

"Sarah, Fred's number is in the address book there. If he can come after I get home I'd appreciate it, otherwise I'll leave the money with you. And don't let him bully you into staying home all day waiting for him! That man will say ten and come at four. Toby and I are off. Help yourself to anything in the house and remember to take your keys if you're going out. Bye!"

Karen was gone.

Toby stuck his head in briefly to smile and wave. "See you," he said. And then he was gone too.

Sarah followed them good naturedly, meaning to wave them off from the front door step. She was dressed, so no one could object to anything.

The old car roared to life and Sarah could swear she saw Karen glare at the dashboard. Karen hated the old car but had never gotten around to buying a new one. They drove off, no doubt listening to the news on the radio.

Sarah took the opportunity to look around furtively, suddenly conscious of her earlier worries. But there was no one in sight and that cheered her up even more than the comforting domesticity of home. Even if home tended to be louder than she would like. It was nice to know some things never changed- her Dad was still selfish, her stepmother was still prissy, and Toby still sounded like death warmed over in the morning.

She used the morning to relax, grasping frantically at what little peace she could get before the chase inevitably started again. At one point, she went into Toby's room with intent to steal the medallion back for safe-keeping and then saw Lancelot.

She ended up taking Lancelot instead of the medallion. She figured Toby wouldn't mind, if he noticed at all.

Sarah had never much cared about light in her room and, to be honest, she quite appreciated the Lathams' porch light shining in at her window. It chased the shadows away. She could only ever be grateful for that.


	3. A Night Like This

For two days this peace continued. She stayed home and slept half the day, read a little, cooked a little, and sat in the utter quiet of an empty house and felt safe. All the doors were locked and all the windows were closed.

But she relaxed enough to let her guard down. Beginning to wake up out of her terror gave her restless mind nothing to focus on so she picked up the phone and called Agnes. Then she picked up the phone and called a few old friends from school. And on the weekend, Sarah courageously told Karen and Robert she'd babysit for them if they wanted to go out for some fun.

"I'll make sure he gets to bed on time," she teased, grinning at her half-brother across the dinner table.

Toby stuck his tongue out at her.

"Toby, don't act like a baby," Robert said sharply, "Thanks, honey, but that's not necessary."

Sarah noticed the glint in Karen's eyes and sniggered into her lettuce. She was right. By the next morning, her Dad long-suffering asked if the offer still held good. She kept her composure, said yes, and chuckled about it all day to herself as she folded clothes and made beds.

The weekend rained. And that put an edge on her temper but she calmed herself down with a stiff drink in the afternoon when everyone was in their rooms. Sarah never usually drank but she was getting tired of finding stores of courage she'd never thought she had. So she drank some brandy, brushed her teeth on the sly, and felt much better than she had for weeks.

"Just you and me, kiddie," she called gaily, shutting the door behind Karen. In the distance she could hear a mocking cry of 'Nooo!' reverberate under the roof. "Come on down and watch a movie with me."

Toby slumped down in a pretend fit of the sulks. "What d'you want to watch?"

"Ickle baby want to watch cartoons?" Sarah laughed.

"I'll have to kill you and bury you in the backyard," he said seriously.

"Oh, come on! You're twelve, not twenty! You can still have fun, can't you?"

"I'm going back upstairs," Toby declared, "You're mean."

"And you're a pain. Sit down and watch 'Blackbeard's Ghost' with me." She noticed he sniffed as if the movie was beneath him but she knew Toby, put the movie on and he'd be laughing his head off. On her part, well, she related to the feeling of seeing someone no one else knew was there.

They were sitting together and Toby was laughing. They had popcorn and juice and times like these were precious to Sarah. She laughed too, more because Toby's humour was infectious. He guffawed with his mouth full and she couldn't help but want to be a part of that. So she laughed.

But she did pause to say, "Toby, slow down. Chew. Corn is not going extinct."

Toby swallowed first and then licked his fingers before frankly declaring, "How do you know? Maybe it will go extinct."

"Yeah, but only because you're eating it like a pig." Sarah prodded his definitely bony side. "How come you don't put on any weight, mister? I have to go to the gym every year after Christmas."

"That's because you're always sitting around reading. You should go out and play touch football sometime."

"I'll pass," Sarah declined, holding up a hand to stop the flow of words. "Yeesh! So how's school?"

"I'm watching the movie," Toby said, "Shut up."

"Sorry!"

There was silence for a few minutes and then Toby said, "It's okay. Before you ask, English Lit sucks."

"Don't you like literature?"

"Not particularly. It's okay. It's the reading that kills me."

Sarah sighed and shook her head. "Chalk and cheese," she said mournfully, "I'd give anything to go back to studying literature."

"Then why don't you?" Toby licked his fingers and got a glare for his troubles. "Sorry."

"Could you put the movie off for a while? I really need to put a load of laundry into the machine. And you promised to wash the dishes."

"Yeah, yeah," Toby grumbled. He stuck his tongue out at Sarah's back when that young lady left the kitchen, not quite annoyed more than rebellious. It wasn't that he minded helping Sarah with the dishes; he just minded having to do the dishes. It was a general rebellion, nothing personal.

He looked at the plates and glasses clattered haphazardly into sink, steeling himself to get on with it. Maybe in a few more minutes. He took off for the tiny laundry where he found his sister busily sorting whites from colours.

"Where are you clothes, Tobes?" she asked, without looking up, "There's far too little here."

"I'm saving water by washing only when necessary," he suggested.

"You're disgusting. Go get them."

He scampered. Sarah was very touchy about clean clothes. Toby just never bothered. For the most part, he left things where he dropped them, except in the living room because his mother brought him up with a few decent habits.

By the time he got back, Sarah was finished sorting out her stuff and waiting impatiently for him. "What took you so long? I was going to start yelling any second."

"Sorry. So, can we get back to the movie?"

She grinned knowingly at him. "Have you done the dishes yet? Then no. Go do those dishes. Do me a favour, though, get your clothes into the hamper, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"We'll see. And don't give me the 'yeah, yeah' shtick."

"I said alright!"

Sarah said nothing more. She only looked at him and continued with her task.

Toby ambled off, frowning a little in annoyance. He got the dishes done and collapsed on the couch where his sister was busy reading a manuscript. The movie didn't seem so interesting any more. "New play?" he asked.

She nodded her head. "Leda. Mom said Paul was interested in producing it, so she asked me to read it. Paul's got more money than sense sometimes."

"How is it?"

"Great," Sarah said hollowly.

Toby looked at her from the corner of his eye.

Sarah caught that look and made a face. "It's, um, very experimental. Lots of sex, lot's of swearing."

"Is it another of those goofy plays where people say weird things to sound clever?" he demanded.

"Leda is highly intelligent, Tobes, and very talented," Sarah sniffed, "Her work in the field of social juxtaposition is tremendously well regarded. She got great critical acclaim for her last play. Which Paul refused, so he wants to cash in on her this time around."

"I didn't get it," Toby said flatly.

"No. You were a little young." He'd been nine, Sarah remembered, and she'd only taken him with her to New York because Karen had to go look after her newly divorced sister.

"And that thing where the woman sleeps with her father," Toby continued.

Sarah dropped the play and motioned him to silence. "No! No, she wasn't sleeping with her father. She was sleeping with someone who looked like her father. There's a big difference. And you were supposed to leave the theatre. What were you doing watching that?"

"Sarah, I was eight," he returned, fiddling with his nails, "Besides, I wanted to see the play. Everyone backstage said it was great."

"Everyone backstage was in the play. They had to like it."

"It was a terrible play, Sarah."

"You shouldn't have watched it, Tobes," Sarah sighed, scratching her nose to hide her face, "I'm sorry. Look, it's a difficult subject. You need to understand that Leda's not saying incest is good. She's just asking about sexual boundaries. Where they stop. Where they start. Why something's wrong when it isn't hurting anyone."

"Like what?"

"Like… I'm not having this conversation with you," she said severely, "Seriously, don't you learn anything in school?"

"Just what goes where?"

"Nothing else?" She tapped a nail impatiently on the manuscript in her lap. "You know, you'd think they'd see the irony. You know all the mechanics, all the techniques, and no one bothers with the morality."

"Oh, they give us the morality, alright- sex is bad; don't do it."

"You guys pay attention?"

"Nope."

"Yeah. No one in my year ever thought sex was bad either."

"Did you?"

"Don't pry. It's rude. So, do you guys ever talk about it?"

"What are you," he demanded, "My priest?"

She gave him the look that said he was going too far with the teenaged rebellion. For the most part, Sarah was very accommodating, explaining it away as the fact that she was his sister, not his mother, even if she had changed his diapers a few times. Sarah believed wholeheartedly in the doctrine of personal privacy. But some things she had to know. She had the awful feeling that the conversation about sex was better had sooner rather than later, considering Karen was a prude.

"You know," he said, with a little more respect, "I don't really know any girls so there's no way I can…" he stopped suddenly and thumped a cushion. "Dammit! I walked right into that!"

Sarah was struggling not to laugh. "No way you can have sex?" she prompted, "With another guy?"

"Shut up, Sarah," he growled, burying his face in his hands.

She laughed out loud at the look on his face and then got up to sit on the arm of his chair. She patted his shoulder soothingly and said, "Tobes, there's nothing wrong with homosexuality."

"I'm not gay!"

"I know. I saw you get all macho around Alice Kendle last summer. How is she by the way? I saw her mom in the video store last week."

"Were you spying on me?"

"For the purposes of this discussion, aren't you glad I did?"

"I hate you," Toby said half-heartedly.

Sarah laughed and said, "Tobes, experimenting isn't all bad- Alice Kendle or one of your, er, friends. Just be safe. Don't do stupid things like run away to clubs and lie about your age. I've had friends who've done that and they all say the same thing- it never works out. Some of them have ruined their lives that way. Okay?"

"Thanks."

"No problem. Now, which of them did you have in mind?" she teased, switching back to the humour.

He pushed her off the arm off his chair and retreated to his room. Flopping over on his bed, Toby Williams was conscious of a desire to stick his tongue out at the ceiling. Which was a juvenile practice but one he could indulge in. He did indulge in it and then, on impulse, reached for Lancelot.

Lancelot wasn't there. Toby sat up and leaned over, looking under the bed for himself to get a better look. All he saw were dust bunnies and no teddy bears. He even looked around his room but couldn't think where he managed to put him. There wasn't anywhere else in the house Lancelot would be because Toby never took him out of his room.

Unless Sarah had.

Which made him wonder why Sarah had been in his room in the first place, and then again, why she'd needed Lancelot?

Toby bounced back into bed and made up his mind to ask Greg about it in the morning. Greg always seemed to know what was what.


	4. The Book

Author's Note: Someone mentioned that this fiction was starting out very vague and disjointed. I apologize if it's off-putting, especially since I'm not updating as regularly as I'd like, bear with me as always. It'll pick up once I get going. And yes, unfortunately I have to maneuver to get things set up right at the start.

Author's Note 2: Someone (a different someone) also asked if twelve wasn't a little young to be talking about girls. Maybe it is. But I didn't mean Toby was sexually explorative in any way. Just that he was acting awkward around a girl his age. Probably in the same way that little boys pull the pigtails of the little girls they like.

Author's Note 3: Whew! This is a lot of asides! But just to make things absolutely clear: this is 2 YEARS LATER!

------------------------------------------------

That had been two years ago.

Since then the Lathams had moved. The new owners weren't quite so worried about burglars but they were worried about dead trees and Karen had finally made that phone call.

Six months after Sarah.

Because Robert didn't even want to talk to Fred.

Oh, he blustered his way through it, naturally. Said he was busy and tired and that he didn't think Fred could handle the job. Karen hadn't had the heart to push it. He could never look her in the eye when he was lying and she knew what recent events had done to him so she swallowed her frustration and made the call.

Fred snuck up to the house only when he knew Robert wasn't there.

"I feel really bad," he confessed to Karen, sawing off the lower branches, "Like I could'a done something. I mean, I came over around nine and I didn't think of looking around back. She might have still been there."

Karen pressed her lips together and smiled coolly. "Now, Fred, that's silly. No one thinks for one minute that you acted wrong. It's just so hard. You know."

He'd nodded sagely and gotten the tree away at record speed.

Karen didn't mention the tree that evening and Robert didn't mention it. Toby did. He said it out loud and looked wretchedly down at his plate.

"They took the tree," he said miserably, "Sarah loved that tree."

"Sarah knew the tree was dead," Robert told him.

It wasn't comfort, but it felt very like it.

That had been two years ago.

Since then Toby had been given a doctor and a wonderful array of tricks to keep his fragile child's mind from thinking about unpleasant things. Things like disappearing sisters. Things like people who stole sisters. Things like memories, really. He was steered away from old memories.

Lancelot was forcibly abducted out of the spare room, along with Sarah's clothes and bits and pieces, much to Toby's eternal anguish. He'd raged about that until he'd come home one day and the room was just the spare room. Not Sarah's room. He'd even found Lancelot back under his bed, where his mother knew he'd always kept him, and Sarah's things bundled into storage in the attic.

The little reddish brown patch on the carpet went the way of all stained carpets and the new carpet was much nicer, Karen hoped, and so much more friendly than a bloodstained scene of crime.

Not that Sarah was dead, oh, no!

Only, no one knew where Sarah was. At eight in the morning she'd been home because Karen had left to go shopping on her week off and said goodbye. At nine Fred had come round to cut down the tree and no one had answered the doorbell. He'd gone away, busy and preoccupied. Karen had come home and thought Sarah had gone for a walk. Robert came home and Toby went into Sarah's room and then there'd been Sarah's blood on the carpet and a police car in the driveway.

So Toby was given a doctor and Karen had got herself a new carpet.

But, as the calendar so cheerfully detailed, that had been two years ago.

Now, Karen was biting at her lower lip on the stairs as she listened to her son throw things around his room.

She hadn't a clue what he was looking for but it sounded important.

Toby knew she was out there but he couldn't be bothered to keep the noise down. It was just that time of year and if she wanted to worry herself to death he wasn't going to stop her. He'd already tried to get her to back away a little but there was no point. She clung closer than ever.

He didn't know why. It wasn't like he was going to disappear too.

He pulled the box out from the floor of his closet and emptied it over the floor of his bedroom. It wasn't there.

Toby sat down at his desk and contemplated the wreckage of his recently tidy room. He'd been looking for that damned book all day. He'd started in the morning, before he left for school, and he'd started again the moment he got back. It niggled at him. He didn't want it per sey, but he wanted to know where it was. It was Sarah's, and it was just that time to think of Sarah.

Not that his life revolved around her or anything.

Blood, yes. That had been a shock, but nothing like what grown-ups made it out to be. What did they expect to find in the deep, dark recesses of his brain?

Greg said most childhood traumas were never properly exposed until the person reached adulthood. In which case, Toby wanted to know why he had to spend his time going to a psychologist when his trauma hadn't had the chance to be developed yet. Greg said he probably didn't even know he was being healed, and that it was better if it happened now than when he was an adult.

Toby listened with half an ear to the sound of his mother quietly retreating back down the stairs.

He didn't have any homework and he wanted to watch TV, but he wasn't in the mood to go down and meet Karen's anxious gaze. He knew what she was thinking. So he'd thrown a couple of tantrums recently, so what? It didn't mean he was losing his temper any more or any less than usual.

He elected to stay where he was.

That damned book had to be somewhere in his room anyway.

He stared idly out of the window to where there should have been a dead tree. The sky was horribly blue and it would be a good day to go cycling somewhere. Anywhere. It didn't matter. Only Greg was busy and Toby didn't feel up to other friends without Greg.

Maybe he did have dependency issues?

Toby snorted and shook his brown head.

He pulled Lancelot out from under his bed and felt carefully along the teddy bear's back. Up near the neck, just where the seam ran, he'd pulled a few of the threads lose. He dug his fingers in just enough to feel the hard, metal lump and then pulled them back. At least the medallion was still there.

There was something about it. Greg thought it was just a piece of costume jewelry. Toby didn't agree. There was something special about it. He could feel it; every time he took it out of the hollow in Lancelot's back and held it in his hands he could feel some sort of little shiver start up his spine.

Which was ridiculous because it looked like a piece of costume jewelry. Toby had no idea where Sarah had got a hold of it. Her story that it had been left for him by some mysterious man was fantastical and just slightly creepy. Normal people didn't have a destiny, and not of the sort Sarah had hinted at.

That, at least, Toby conceded. He had no destiny.

He put Lancelot back under his bed and sat cross-legged, staring out of the window with his cheek pillowed on his palm.

His gaze fell on the window seat.

And he clicked his tongue in exasperation and tumbled out of bed.

Where else would he have put it but in there? Sarah had put it there when it was her room and he'd had some crazy idea about returning it to its rightful place until she came back. He'd put it in the window seat!

He snapped the lid up and stuck his hand in there.

A horrified expression crossed his face and for one moment Toby went very still and then he said, "Oh no!"

The book was there, in plain view, on top of a heap of old comic books. But it was damp. More than damp, it was wet. Horribly wet. In fact, drenched.

"Oh no," Toby moaned again, and pulled it out. And then he looked at the sky outside his window and said, "Sarah will kill me," and tried to flip it open.

It was as bad as he had feared. The pages were tearing. The binding looked like someone was methodically peeling pieces of it away.

He didn't know what to do with the book like this. If Sarah ever came home and found what he had done to her favourite book, she'd really go beserk. Toby felt faint just thinking about it.

On impulse he got up, put on his shoes, and grabbed a jacket. He stuffed the book carefully into his pocket and stuck his head out of his bedroom door.

"Mom," he yelled, "I'm going out. Mom?" He found her in her bedroom, putting clothes away. "Hey. I'm going out for a bit."

"Anywhere special?" she asked, barely glancing up.

"Nope." He toed the carpet with his sneaker and noticed that his laces were undone.

"Are you going alone?" she asked, shutting the drawer. "Never mind, I didn't ask that. Be back for dinner, okay?"

"Bye, Mom."

He vanished from the doorway.

Karen shook her head but she smiled at the thought that at least he had cheered up.

Toby was less than cheered. The book had been in his keeping since Sarah had left it behind. If she ever came back, he didn't know how he was going to explain the book's condition to her. What could he possibly say to excuse how bedraggled it looked? The spine was falling off, the cover had damp patches, the pages were soggy and torn… she'd scream.

His only hope, as he saw it, was to get it fixed. Toby was well aware that it needed specialists to do something like that and his big plan was to go where there was an expert in old things. So he headed for the antique store. It meant he had to take a bus, but that was a small price to pay.

He fidgeted on the bus, taking the time to finally do up his shoelace, and stared out of the window. When he did take the book out of his pocket, it looked worse than ever. So he stuck it back in his jacket and left it there.

Forty minutes later he was outside the antique store. There were others, but this one looked less intimidating than them. Plus, the others had people in them. Toby was determined, but he wanted privacy.

Screwing up his courage, he finally got himself into the door.

It was like entering another world. There wasn't enough light anywhere. Things were crowded higgledy-piggledy around the place. Every corner looked like it could have a treasure or a rat hiding in it. Toby stared around and thought dazedly that he quite liked the little china woman on the cabinet.

He was so intent on her that he almost didn't see the man who appeared suddenly out of the shadows and watched him quietly from a safe distance, one pale hand on an old gramophone horn and a secretive smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"She is pretty, isn't she? But not quite what you'd expect," the man said suddenly.

Toby started.

The man picked her up and held her casually out to the boy. "See for yourself."

She was a very pretty statuette, with her little china face screwed up against an imaginary wind. One hand held down her white china dress and the other held her white china hat on her white china head.

Toby took her very carefully and looked at her. Then he turned her around and began to laugh. The hands holding her clothing at bay were clearly too busy to take care of her back view. Her dress had blown up in the back, baring a pretty white china behind.

The man chuckled too and took her back. "She always gets a laugh." He put her back on the cabinet. "She is quite worthless, however. What were you looking for?"

"Oh," Toby said, "Right. Er, do you know anything about old books?"

"A little," the man admitted, "It depends what exactly it is about old books I need to know."

Toby took the book out of his pocket and held it out.

The man took it gingerly. "What happened to it? It looks like it was drowned."

"Yeah," Toby said nervously, "It was by the window and the rain got in. I want to get it fixed."

The man took the book from him and looked it over. "There is some water damage. Along with other problems."

"Can you do it?" Toby persisted.

The man looked astonished for a moment and then put it down on the counter with a smile. "I don't repair books. I can give you the name of someone who can if you like but I'm not sure this will be worth it. The damage is quite extensive."

"Is it?"

"The spine is gone, you have torn pages and it will need to be completely rebound."

Toby deflated. "That sounds expensive."

"It is."

"Damn."

The man eyed him interestedly and then picked up the book again. He read the name and raised an eyebrow. If he hadn't really expected the boy in front of him to own old books, he was also not expecting the book to be an obscure fantasy.

He flipped carefully through the pages, wincing at the damp feel beneath his fingertips.

Toby waited patiently.

"Have you read this?" the man eventually asked.

Toby shrugged. "A few times. It's my sister's. She loved the thing."

"Ah. I see. And you wanted it fixed before she found out it was damaged?"

"Yeah."

The man smirked and handed the book over. "I am sorry," he said decisively, "I can give you the name of an expert but you will have to be prepared to pay for it."

"Right."

The man went back behind his counter, picked up something from under the shelf and handed it over. "Here you are. The name and number. If you find you can afford it, be patient. They're not quick but they do good work. Anything else?"

"No. That's about it. Thanks, though."

"You're very welcome," the man said.

Toby shook the hand held out to him and left the store. He managed to get the very next bus going back his way and stuck the book back into the pocket. At least he had tried to do something about it. Now, when Sarah came back, he could explain that he'd tried but it was too expensive. She might take that better.


	5. News

Author's Note: Sorry about the slow updates. Those who have reviewed did it so promptly that I am quite ashamed of myself. It will improve as I get back into the hang of things.

---------------------------------

"What makes you think there's something wrong?" Robert demanded. He took off his shirt and flung it into the hamper.

"He's nervous, Robbie," Karen called back, "He left the house and wouldn't tell me where he was going. Can't you talk to him?"

"Sure I can." Robert emerged in jeans and smiled soothingly at his wife. "What should I say?"

"Ask him where he went."

"I thought we were going to give him space now he's older. You know how boys are."

"Forget that. I know how my boy is and there's something wrong. I want to know what but I know he won't tell me." Karen bit off the end of the thread and put her newly mended blouse down. "He might tell you."

Robert shook his head but said, "Okay."

Karen stared contemplatively at her husband's back as he rummaged through their closet for a shirt. "You don't really care, do you?" she accused, "You think I'm making this up."

Robert looked over his shoulder. "Of course not. I'll talk to him."

"I don't believe you. What'll you say?"

Robert dearly loved Karen but there were times that she annoyed him. He wished he could tell her to shut up but they weren't children and there was no excuse for such language. As it stood, he didn't think he could take another argument; he was already depressed. Two years ago this Wednesday, his troubled daughter had vanished into thin air. His son had been devastated to find her blood in the spare room. He himself had almost fallen apart blaming himself for not taking her seriously, for dismissing her nerves as just that- nerves. And Karen never knew when to leave well enough alone!

"I'll ask him where he went," he said, "If he seems worried, I'll try to get him to talk. If he's fine, I'll let him be."

"What if he won't talk to you?" Karen persisted.

"Then I'll do what we said and I'll respect his privacy. Leave it like that."

"How is that helpful?" Karen exclaimed. She gathered up her mended clothing with a click of her tongue and stuffed it into a worn black leather bag. "You know how he gets every year around this time."

"He's seen the doctor this month. What more can I do?"

"Talk to him, Robbie. I'd do it, but a boy needs his Dad."

Karen softened as she noticed that Robert wasn't turning around to face her. She knew his temper extraordinarily better than he realized and decided that she had pushed him enough.

She hugged him from behind and kissed his shoulder. "Then you can come back here and talk to me. I know how hard this is for you, too."

Robert patted the hands around his waist. It was always better to just say yes and go along with it. Karen was a very determined woman. Good-hearted, but stubborn. Robert agreed reluctantly and felt slightly better knowing it made her happy.

He liked making her happy. She tended to get giggly and girlish when she was happy and he found her quite adorable like that.

When he turned around again, the black leather bag was bulging with clothes at the foot of the bed and his wife was smoothing their counterpane down from sheer habit. He raised an eyebrow at the bag but decided not to ask. Ten to one it was a charity drive of some sort and Karen had rummaged through their closet for clothes that hadn't had the chance to get old yet. He knew her well enough to put his favourite old clothes into a corner. She knew him well enough in her turn to leave them alone.

He settled in front of the television for an hour of uninterrupted peace while the news was on. Karen came out of her study only long enough to check the stove.

The house was perfectly quiet otherwise. No children in any of the rooms.

Robert did keep an eye on the clock, though, worried in spite of himself. Karen tended to be overprotective of Toby but Toby should have been home about twenty minutes ago. It was a school evening and he wasn't really allowed to go traipsing around the countryside.

It wasn't just that the house was too quiet, or that Robert had grown a little paranoid in recent years.

It was dark outside and they didn't know where their son was. Anything could have happened to him. Who would know? There were evil people in the world and Toby could have fallen foul of any number of them. Sarah had vanished in the morning, when the neighbours were home across the street and Mrs. Zeveros was outside in her garden enjoying the sunshine. What worse could happen in the dark night when the neighbours across the street were out and Mrs. Zeveros was ready to go to bed?

He debated calling Emily Symons to see if Greg knew where Toby was. Greg might know something. The two were very close like that.

Too close?

What if Toby was in trouble? It was entirely possible Greg would lie to protect him. And Greg was a good liar, damn the boy! But on the other hand, if it was really bad, Robert placed a lot of good sense in Greg's inability to follow a lie through. Of the two, Greg would be the first to crack.

He resolved to have a long talk with his son about coming home on time.

Toby got home with ten minutes to spare to dinner. He sauntered into the front door and tossed his jacket in the hall closet.

"Hi," he said, spying his father, "Sorry I'm late." It was a disarming sort of thing to say.

Robert deflated somewhat, and felt a little foolish with Toby so obviously hale and hearty. He'd been imagining him in a ditch somewhere with his throat cut. He mumbled a hello instead and stared blankly at the television screen.

Toby flopped next to him and took a deep breath. "I went to an antique store today," he said.

Robert frowned. "An antique store? For what?"

"I found Sarah's book. You know, the play she liked. You said I could have it."

"Yes, I remember. But why an antique store? Did you want to sell it?"

"Sell it? No."

"Then why take it to an antique store?"

Toby rubbed his nose. "I didn't want to sell or buy anything. I wanted to see if I could get Sarah's book fixed. It was in the window seat and the rain came in. The pages are tearing and the binding's gone so I figured an antique store could tell me where to get it fixed."

Robert relaxed and smiled. "That's a pretty expensive ambition, son."

"I know," Toby grimaced, "That's what the guy told me. He said it wasn't worth it for the book."

"It's an old book, Toby. It doesn't matter."

Toby nodded and watched hypnotized as a trunk crunched into a wall in slow motion. Then he said, "It wasn't really an antique store. More like a collection of old junk. It was pretty cool."

"Really? Your mother loves that sort of thing," Robert said vaguely.

Father and son looked at each other and back at the television screen. Robert might say it didn't matter but both knew the other was thinking of Sarah in the future. 'When Sarah Comes Home' was a phrase that underlined a lot of conversations about books and stuffed toys. Less than two months ago, they'd stood firm against Karen's suggestion that a box full of old clothes in the attic be thrown out. They weren't even Sarah's clothes exactly; just old dress-up things she'd collected as a girl.

In this case the book was even more poignant.

"Your mother's birthday is come up," Robert said, "Did you see anything she'd like?"

Toby thought about the china figurine. "No."

"Hmmm," Robert said vaguely, "We'll have to think of something else, then. What about that book?"

"The guy gave me the name and number of some people who do it. They said they were experts."

"Experts usually mean more than expensive." Robert stretched and yawned. "Probably not a good idea, Toby."

"I know, I know. I thought I'd take the card just in case." Toby subsided into silence and the next sound was of the study door opening.

"Would one of you turn the stove off?" Karen barked, "I can smell it burning from here!"

"I thought it was a new recipe," Robert grinned.

Toby sniggered and both males watched in amusement as Karen stalked off to the rescue of her cooking, muttering recriminations under her breath. Luckily for both of them dinner wasn't burned so much as slightly singed. Karen forgave them when Robert insisted that they could set the table and make a salad while she finished her own work.

"It'll only take another five minutes," she excused, going back.

The study door clicked shut and Robert got out the plates and handed them over to Toby. "Here. You do the table and I'll do the salad."

"Okay."

Toby set the table the way he knew his mother liked it and sat down, fiddling with his fork for the lack of anything better to do. His father handled kitchen duty pretty well so the steady thud of the blade against the wooden block underwrote a comfortable silence between the two.

Father and son were close like that.

Toby was pulled out of his daydream when the salad landed on the table in front of him and went to get his mother.

His mother had a notice from his school pressed almost up to her nose, and she was frowning disapprovingly at it.

"Mom, are you coming?" he asked, poking his head in.

"Hmmm?"

"Dinner's ready."

"Give me a minute." She squinted at the paper for a minute and then put it down. "Honestly! A new teacher at this time of the year. Tsk."

"What?"

"What have I told you about your manners," Karen said sternly, "The word is 'pardon', not 'what'."

"Right. Pardon," Toby repeated obediently.

If his capitulation was a little lacklustre, Karen didn't comment on it. She sat down and poured herself a glass of water first. "Did you know your English teacher was leaving?"

"Yeah. I told you a couple of weeks ago."

"What is this?" Robert demanded, "What teacher?"

"Toby's English teacher is leaving and the school is bringing in someone new," Karen explained, "The school year's almost over and now they get a new teacher. It's quite stupid, really."

"What else can they do?" Toby shrugged, "Mr. Felix is leaving to get married."

His mother looked at him.

"Well, everyone knows," her son defended himself.

Robert shared an amused smile with his wife. Of course everyone knew. In a small town, everyone always knew. Everyone would probably know everything about this new teacher a day after he started teaching at the school.

"They should have let him go last year when they knew," Karen complained, "Toby, pass me some salt, please. I never get the salt right."

"I think it's fine," Robert remarked, spearing a piece of carrot and disconcerted to find the damned thing disintegrating the minute he touched it.

"You always think it's fine," Karen huffed, "I could burn water and you'd think it was fine."

"It shows I love you."

"It shows how little you know."

Toby rolled his eyes at his parents and pretended not to listen. It was cute in a disgusting kind of way. He didn't think anyone else's parents were quite as bad.

"So I get a new teacher," he interrupted, "That should be fun. I wonder what he'll be like."

"Probably perfectly normal," his father replied.


	6. The Man

Greg said the new teacher would be cool.

"My uncle said he was young and still needed straightening out," Greg said enthusiastically, "So you know what that means."

"Morning, Mrs. Symons," Toby said struggling get himself, his bag and his seatbelt sorted out after throwing himself into the backseat. Greg's basketball under his feet was making things more difficult. "Hey, Greg."

"Are you listening? I said the new teacher's going to be cool," Greg declared.

"You two won't give him a hard time, will you?" Mrs. Symons said sternly. She caught a glimpse of Toby's face in the rear-view mirror and had to smile. He already looked guilty. "Toby?"

"No," he said quickly.

"Gregory?"

"No, Mom. Hey, Mom, are you picking me up today?"

"Your dad is. Hey! What the hell does that idiot think he's doing?" She stuck her head out of the car window. "That's a red light, you bastard!"

Greg turned around and rolled his eyes at Toby, who only laughed and tried to get his hair to ruffle.

"So, like I was saying, this guy's new here. But my Uncle Peter says he's strict. I wasn't sure about that one, but he sounded like he'd be good."

"Yeah."

"Come on! Get excited!"

"It's English," Toby complained, "What's to get excited about? The new guy will come in, he'll do his thing and then he'll go out. He'll be like Felix, sort of. So what?"

"So you're an idiot," Greg said.

"Greg!" Mrs. Symons threatened, "Toby, dear, everything alright in the back there?"

"Yeah."

"Then how about you smile a little more, okay? No one wants to put up with a temper so early in the morning."

Toby rolled his eyes and Greg only laughed.

By the time they got to school, both boys were restless and Mrs. Symons was thankful to get them out of the car. She'd started the tradition of putting Greg in the front because she was terrified of the trouble they could cook up together in the back seat. Putting Greg in the front had reassured her, but now her eardrums were suffering. Greg had full access to the radio, the tape deck, and a set of lungs in excellent health. He made full use of at least two of those three luxuries at any given time.

"Get out," she said weakly, "Both of you. Greg, take your damned ball out of the back!"

"Yes, Mom."

The car drove away a little too fast, jerking to a stop as it almost ran over a blond guy in the same year who once admitted to still wanting to suck his thumb when he was nervous.

"Think we scared her?" Greg asked rhetorically, "Hey, Colin! You okay?"

"Your mom almost killed me," he exclaimed. Then he calmed down. "I'm fine. Well, my Dad's decided to take me with him this winter and that's a little scary but I'll survive."

"The usual thing, huh?"

"One of his business trips," Colin snorted, "It'll be boring as hell. I get to sit around a hotel room all day and watch three old men drink whiskey every night. And when Dad finally takes me out, he'll pick the zoo!"

"Sounds crap. Well, at least he's trying," Greg said fairly.

Colin nodded and turned to Toby. Somehow, even with his clothes neatly pressed and carefully settled, Colin ended up with his collar frayed and his jacket askew. At the moment, his nondescript pale eyes were blinking rapidly in the late summer sun. "How're you, Toby?"

"I found one of my sisters old college scripts yesterday," Toby said cheerfully, "Really small, but it's pretty funny."

"What was it?"

"Something about a safety pin." Toby studied his nails with casual aplomb. "You know, the punk movement and everything. Just that kind of stuff."

Greg screwed up his nose. "One of my cousins likes old punk music. He has all the CDs and everything. My aunt's really worried because he's wearing eyeliner and stuff. He sent me a tape of this one group called The Buzzcocks. It was crazy."

"Good songs?"

"Okay songs," Greg said, "Great name."

"Toby, your bag's open," came a deeper voice.

"Hi Vic," Toby said, turning around, "I thought you were away for a few weeks. What're you doing here?"

"Leave you little shits here? I'll come back to find the school's gone," Victor grinned, "The trip got cancelled. I said I wanted to stay for another year."

Greg cast an expert glance at the older boy's jacket front. "Still saving the forests?"

"Yup. You're not, are you?"

"Nope."

"I thought not." Victor smacked the back of Greg's head and moved away to meet a group of youths his own age. He left three faces grinning after him.

Victor Reas was an ally of sorts, useful for getting Greg and Toby out of trouble. He treated them good-naturedly as some kind of school mascot to be trotted out at whimsical events. It was a friendship built on an exchange of good will. Both Greg and Toby had been genuinely sad to hear Victor was probably moving to Europe with his grandparents.

Colin was mostly unimpressed by Victor. "He's a pain," he huffed.

"That's 'cause he called you a baby," Greg teased, darting out of the way of one of Colin's ineffectual attempts to whack him.

Toby indulged the both of them by staying out of their way. A teacher Toby vaguely recognized as someone who taught the tenth grade strode sulkily across the lawn and just about avoided being run over by two idiots on skateboards.

"Hey, Toby, you coming in?"

Toby made a face. "It's school. I never like going in."

"Well, I want to meet the new English guy," Greg decided.

Colin's ears pricked up. "What new English guy?" he demanded, "Who's that?"

"The new English guy," Greg clarified, "You know, the one teaching English?"

"Oh, he teaches English. I thought you meant he was English."

"Maybe he is," Toby grinned.

Colin pretended to calculate that up on his fingers. "Man, he must be good," he said, "He's English and everything. Why didn't they think of that before?"

"Come on, genius. Remind me to teach you how to tell a joke," Greg sighed, patting Colin's shoulder.

Toby hung around outside for a minute, just watching the school brood down at him. And then he took a deep breath, steeled himself, and went in. Truth be told, he was also quite interested in what the new English teacher was going to be like. But first there was homeroom, the excitement of figuring out whether or not he was ready to cope with the day ahead and finding out that, no, school hadn't gotten more fun since yesterday.

"Sit down, please, and pay attention," Mrs. Lint short-sightedly motioned to them to settle down, walking up and down between the desks. She accidentally stood on someone's foot but they were apt to forgive her that when she was their homeroom teacher. "Come on. Mr. Brandon has an announcement."

Most people quite liked Charlene Lint. She was divorced, with grown-up children, and one of those women teachers who had the great ability to combine her maternal instinct with good humour. She let her students be for the most part and didn't bother them unless they were in trouble. But no student in trouble in Mrs. Lint's class need ever think they were abandoned. Stories went that she had even offered to pay back all the money an unnamed student was supposed to have stolen from her class.

Toby didn't believe that, of course. Greg did, but Greg liked to believe outlandish stories. The more improbable the better.

"That's why you like English," Toby accused in an undertone while they sat around in boredom while someone crackled and stuttered their way through the announcements.

Greg kicked his foot but otherwise didn't react.

The Principal's speech was long. But then his speeches were always long. Mr. Brandon was cold, precise, and inclined to make long speeches about nothing that should take fifteen minutes to say. Victor Reas always said it was tradition to time one of the Principal's speeches at least once in every student's life.

Greg said he'd timed a speech for twenty minutes. Colin swore blind he'd timed one for five. No one knew when such a miracle could have taken place but Colin protested it had.

Toby hadn't timed one yet. He never remembered to bring his watch, and when he did remember, he forgot to put it on, and when he did remember that, he forgot to time it. He was resigned to never performing the tradition. He figured his parents would forgive him if he did okay in his studies. Sarah had told him she'd never timed a speech either and so far as she remembered, no one in her year ever did. But then, she'd been to the school so long ago.

The Principal did announce that there was a new teacher taking English, but he didn't introduce the man or point him out. He did give his last name as Keiler.

An Indian kid just behind Toby and Greg giggled something about Psycho and killers and then shut up when someone roughly told him to be quiet. Very uncivilly.

Colin was most disappointed. So were some of the others. Greg only shrugged and said, "We'll see him eventually. He's bound to be teaching us. Felix's gone last week, didn't he?"

"Yeah. He got married," Freddie said gloomily, "I liked Felix. He didn't expect me to do anything. He said all I had to do was pass."

"That's a crap thing to say," Greg protested hotly, "What teacher's supposed to say that? He's supposed to inspire you, not tell you all that matters is passing."

"It is when you can't seem to pass," Toby said laconically. He meditated on the pencil he'd just chewed. "Yeugh! I haven't even started class yet and already I'm chewing pencils. This guy had better be worth it."

"Just don't get a splinter in your mouth again."

Toby made a face and stuck his tongue out as the others laughed. "So no English today," he said, "Maybe we'll have him tomorrow."

"Right. Maybe he'll be around at lunch," Colin said hopefully.

"You know, maybe we'll get one of the other teachers for the rest of the year, Colin," Greg pointed out, "Maybe he won't teach us. Anyway, he can't run and hide and we have English tomorrow, so maybe we'll see him tomorrow."

"I know. I just want to know if he's going to be any good."

"You can't tell by looking at someone," Freddie scoffed.

"Nothing is what it seems," Toby quoted, "My sister always says that."

"My Mom says appearances are misleading, but a chocolate cake looks like a chocolate cake," Colin snapped, "All the teachers act like they look. People like Lint and Felix smile a lot. The others don't."

Freddie shrugged and started idly throwing paper crumbs at one of the boys in the corner. Not two minutes later, their teacher came rushing through the door. Catherine Shear was always late, always carrying maps and charts, and always so terrified of not covering the course that her classes were inevitably behind. "Open your books," she rapped out, "Hurry! Hurry!"

Greg flopped forward on his desk with a groan and Toby sniggered below his breath.

School was starting to get a little exciting again.


	7. The Teacher

The new English teacher was in the room when the students got there the next day.

The boys trooped in with round eyes. It was a mark of their curiousity that chatter stopped at the doorway.

Greg was one of the first people into the room, and he saved a space for his friend by dropping a book on the seat behind him. He dropped the book, turned around, and caught a disconcertingly keen gaze from a pair of blue eyes.

Greg panicked momentarily, and then laughed at himself for such a fit of nerves. He went back to his seat and fidgeted with his books instead, arranging them at exact right angles to the edge of the desk. When he looked up again, the man was calmly having a word with one of the brainy kids in front. Greg grinned ruefully to himself and watched the door.

Toby came in with Colin a few seconds into this cheery interlude. Both stared dubiously at the man at the front of the class and backed slowly into position around Greg.

Toby got the book off the seat and handed it back to Greg. Then he sank down thankfully into the precious seat.

When most seats were taken- except for two in front as was always the case- the new teacher looked around the class and flashed them all a sudden smile.

"Your attention," he said, holding up a hand, "Silence, please. Quiet."

Even the gentle murmur humming under the surface trailed away. Everyone was too intrigued, too focused on what this new teacher would be like. They knew his name, and now they knew what he looked like, but they were still waiting to find out whether they liked him or not.

"Thank you," he said, and put his hand down. The appendage found its way behind his back along with its partner, there to be held in a light clasp. "Good morning."

The boys looked around surreptitiously at each other from the corners of their eyes. "Morning, Mr. Keiler."

Gordon Keiler winced internally. But he bolstered himself and said, "This is a class in English, so I assume you are all taking this subject? No one in the wrong class? I was given to understand that you are halfway through this… book? Good. I'll come back to that in a minute. First, I'd like to establish some ground rules."

He skimmed down the list of names on his desk.

"I'm sure there are certain customs in this school that I will not be following. You may have noticed that I am new," he said drolly, "So basics may be somewhat shaky in terms of class structure. I'll be blunt about how I expect to be treated; you may call me either 'Sir' or "Mr. Keiler'. My preference is 'Sir' but you may choose amongst yourselves. I don't appreciate interruptions when I am teaching. I do like questions, comments and other helpful contributions but you will raise your hand until I give you leave to talk. I expect all of you to take notes and keep them. What else? Oh, yes, on the subjects of notebooks, I have no patience with bad handwriting and scraps of paper. I was told to expect them and I look forward to the day I first behold such a monstrosity with horror."

He paused and took in their awe-struck faces. The sight required all his self-composure to keep from sniggering.

"I talk funny, do I?" he asked intimately.

Pairs of eyes of all colours went wide in shock.

"You can comprehend what I am saying, yes?" he annunciated, nodding his head to encourage slowly encouraging them to respond.

There was dead silence.

"No?" he tried, attempting to provoke any reaction at all.

The boys seemed to be frozen.

Gordon Keiler sighed to himself. This job had not attracted him for any simplicity when he had applied for it and it was growing steadily worse as the minutes progressed. The Lint woman had assured him the class were all intelligent, likeable little people but he was beginning to doubt her reliability.

"Does anyone have any questions, comments or other helpful contributions?" he offered.

One of the boys in the middle slowly put up his hand.

"Yes?"

"We have a paper due next week. Do we still do that?"

Gordon said nothing at first, just continued to watch the boy steadily until he began to squirm in his seat. When he had accomplished that, he said, "I'm sorry, what was your name?"

"Peter Costain."

Gordon raised a mildly rebuking eyebrow.

"Mr. Keiler," the boy amended with a rush.

A very faint smile told him he'd got it right.

"Your paper is still due in a week's time, Costain," Gordon said amiably.

All of a sudden, their suspicions of the new teacher vanished in a hailstorm of groans and moans. Someone even hissed, "Give us a break," to the general public.

Another hand went up.

"Yes?" Gordon allowed, beginning to enjoy himself.

"Are we expected to do research?" A second's hesitation. "Sir?"

"Your name?"

"Greg Symons, Sir."

Gordon frowned slightly and went back to his list. "Gregory Symons?"

"Yes, Sir."

Gordon nodded and answered, "No, Symons, you're not. I understand the change of teacher will confuse matters but the course was set some time ago and I must keep to it. I will go easy on you; I just want to gauge your abilities to think and plan a paper."

A sigh of relief rippled around the class.

Toby nodded once to himself and resigned the next week to struggling over a paper that at least he couldn't fail. Not that anyone ever actually failed English but some people- and he'd been one of them- could come pretty damn close. He damned Sarah to hell for setting the benchmark so high with their expectant father.

The new teacher didn't rest on his laurels after that one, but used the remainder of the time to figure out where they were in the course plan.

When the bell went, he didn't stop them from bouncing out of their seats and stampeding out of the door. He didn't like it, but he estimated that it was just one more compromise. These kids were not going to give him the sort of deference he was used to, but then a short run down a corridor was beneficial in some ways.

Gordon wended his way meditatively back to the staff's room, going over his first class in his head. It had been… less that successful, really.

His students were of the same mind. Greg was a little disappointed with how normal the new teacher looked.

"He's not really exciting, is he?" he sighed.

Colin dropped his books and almost fell over trying to pick them up again. "I think he's cool."

"You would," Greg retorted, "What's so cool about him?"

"He's funny. I got to run, I've got math."

Toby decided to withhold opinion until he'd managed to finish his paper. He felt one could tell a lot about a teacher from the way he graded a paper. Namely, Toby liked teachers who took into account that at least he tried. For the rest of it, he was inclined to think the teacher more interesting that either good or bad.

There was something about those blue eyes, something in the way he held his head.

Gordon Keiler wasn't like any teacher Toby had ever seen in his life. For one thing, he did actually talk funny. He used long words and he didn't talk like a teacher with the slow commands and short sentences. He talked like he was used to having people obey him, no matter what he said.

Those kinds of people, Toby felt, were very interesting.

Greg just said he was imagining it all.


	8. Out on the Town

"So how was the new teacher?" Robert asked, cutting up his meat.

Toby nodded with his mouth full and swallowed convulsively. "Okay, I guess. We only had the one class."

"Do you still have your assignment?" Karen asked, smiling knowingly, "Oh, you didn't think I'd forgotten, did you? I'm your mother; I remember everything. I see all. Eat your lettuce."

Toby looked down at his plate and dutifully speared a piece of lettuce. It wasn't that he didn't like lettuce, but he just didn't see the point. "Ms. Lint says lettuce is mostly water. Not much nutrition."

"Well, it's what you've got for dinner and it's green," Karen declared, "Come on! All down!"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Don't give me that. I can't see you eating it."

"I'm eating it! I'm eating it! See me eating it?"

Karen winked at Robert and said, "Oh, the joys of parenting- I get to order someone around. It's very empowering, isn't it, sweetheart?"

"How would I know? Nobody ever listens to me," Robert shrugged, "Toby, if you grow up ordering people around, you didn't get it from me."

"I like that!"

Toby rolled his eyes while his father and mother amiably argued over the dinner table. He was only listening with one ear in any case so he wasn't embarrassed or disquietened very much either way. His parents did things like that. Greg's parents just shared a table and hummed 'yes' or 'no' at each other. On the other hand, Greg talked more than enough for both his parents so it was probably that they just couldn't get a word in edge-wise.

He absent-mindedly munched lettuce. "He's different," he said obliviously.

"Who is?"

"Mr. Keiler."

"Is that his name?" Robert asked, wrinkling his nose, "Where's he from?"

"Dunno."

Robert left it at that. It was a puzzling thing to be sure. No one really knew. Everyone whispered behind their hands and said it was scandalous what state schools did, bringing teachers in and out of classes mid-year like jacks in a very big box, but no one actually had very much information on this new teacher. They knew what his profession was, they knew what he taught, they knew where he rented a matchbox of a house, they knew what car he drove, they knew whose sons and daughters he taught, they knew he was a little strange and they knew he was very good at avoiding personal questions. Such as whether or not he was married.

Of course, Mirella Bradley at the petrol station was just the one to ask this burning question and everyone above a certain age knew Mirella Bradley was a very friendly, welcoming sort of girl so no one had first doubted she could get an answer.

"He wouldn't say," Mirella mourned, "Such a mean, snobby sort of person. I didn't like him at all. I can't see anyone marrying a cold fish like him."

Old Mr. Dipp in the local bar said it was to be expected the poor man'd been a snobby sort of person. Girls like Mirella scared most decent men. Old Mr. Dipp said it showed what good reflexes Mr. Keiler had, escaping the noose of women's wiles right from the start. Of course, old Mr. Dipp was also a gambler, a womanizer and a drunk whose wife had run off with the neighbour's son when the failure of her marriage finally got to her and he'd been a bitter old bastard ever since. No one took much of notice of him, particularly in the local bar.

On another note, Keiler's students seemed perversely protective. They didn't say they liked him- most thought he was too strict and a bit strange- but they took great exception to hearing their parents reduce him to the standing of a common man.

Greg wasn't one of those students. He cheerfully reduced Gordon Keiler to the standing of a common man every chance he got. He talked about the funny things that happened in class. He also complained more than vociferously that Mr. Keiler was ruining the fine traditions of student-teacher interactions, like the fact that Mr. Keiler always prowled restlessly around the class, sometimes even walking up and down the aisles.

This was a distinct no-no to Greg Symons. Teachers were not intended to walk up and the aisles between desks. They did sometimes, when there were tests or quizzes to supervise or something, but they didn't make a habit of it.

"There's an invisible line," he argued, "It divides student from teacher, our side from their side. They can come into our side sometimes but they shouldn't make it a habit. What'll we do if every stupid teacher started walking up and down between the desks? How will we slack off?"

"Maybe he does it so we can't," Freddie said bluntly, "Don't be a drip."

"It ruins the fun," Greg argued.

"So does your face. We still have to see that."

"Shut up."

"You shut up!"

At which Toby would invariably wander off in his mind and think more pleasant thoughts. There was a strange sort of 'mood' amongst his class these days and Toby was one of those kids who didn't, necessarily, like 'moods'. He shied away from them. His doctor tended to like to talk about moods a lot and Toby had learned to steer clear of situations that made him 'angry', 'unhappy', 'nervous' or just plain 'confused'.

Gordon Keiler confused people.

He was strange, yes. His students learned that very early in their careers. His threat about what he 'preferred to be called' wasn't just showboating. He really meant it. Gordon Keiler didn't like to be called 'Sir' but he liked even less to be addressed by an unsuspecting student who forgot even that simple honourific to his name. He also really did take very good care of notes. He'd frozen the class to blocks of ice with the simple observation that not one of them had so much as a notebook for his subject, never mind an unblotted set of notes of any form whatsoever.

This was actually quite unfair though no one dared to say it.

The unfortunately named Hilly Teens did have a beautifully appointed folder with loose-leaf notes that would have passed muster with any exacting teacher, but poor little Hilly had been sick that day and so missed the one chance in her school life to be bathed in the golden light of public acclaim.

The one good thing that came from that day was that the little group of semi-popular girls cultivated Hilly the next day while they copied her notes down with an industrious lack of creative independence for the benefit of placating poor, delusional Mr. Keiler. They dropped her like a hot potato when they were done but Hilly derived a lot of satisfaction from Mr. Keiler observing that not only had those two girls managed to manufacture the same notes in one evening, but that they had manufactured the same mistakes as well and was there really a logical explanation for it?

Toby had enjoyed that little episode as much as anyone.

The parents, though, couldn't see why a teacher had to interfere with their children's notes. Surely a teacher couldn't treat fourteen-year-olds like so many babies? What right had any teacher to demand an inspection of his students' notebooks?

The students were less concerned. Mr. Keiler was a short, sudden, sharp change to an otherwise dull existence and everyone wanted to say they walked on his side of the street.

Not that he revolutionized anything. Toby was still struggling over his paper.

"I don't know what to do," he complained, playing with a sandwich, "It's so boring."

"It's not that bad," Colin said generously, "You guys can come over after school if you like and we can do it together. Help each other out."

"Sure." Greg grinned at Colin and poked the other boy in the arm. "We could watch those cartoons you still have."

"Hey, those are my cousin's," Colin protested, flinging up his hands, "I don't watch 'em, you know. She does."

"Suu-ure, you don't!"

"I don't watch 'em."

"Yeah, right, Colin."

"I don't!"

"You were reeling off lines in the computer lab two weeks ago and I just know they weren't from any movie I've seen with you."

"It was a movie I saw with my dad," Colin said primly.

"The same Dad who takes you to the zoo?" Greg quipped.

Colin went a little red and a little quiet and even Greg knew he'd stepped too far. Colin was usually resigned to the ribbing he got for being sensitive but when his sensitivity finally got the better of him, most of his friends apologized. If the person who'd hurt his feelings didn't apologize, his friends apologized for that too. The unmentioned concept was that if Colin was to be called a wimp, they'd do the calling and everyone else could bloody well keep their noses out.

"Sorry, Colin," Greg mumbled, "It's not like the rest of us don't watch cartoons either, sometimes. Toby does."

Toby glared at him. He caught the pleading look in Greg's gypsy-dark eyes and perjured himself. "Yeah. Saturday mornings and a couple of afternoons when I'm home. Who doesn't?"

"You do?" Colin asked sceptically. Then, typical boy fashion, the victim became as cruel as the rest. "Man, that's lame. At least my Dad makes me watch cartoons. You actually watch 'em for fun!"

"What can I say," Toby mumbled, not wanting to say anything at all.

"Let's change the subject," Greg said firmly, "Toby, why're you such a drag?"

"What?"

"You're playing fairy games in your head again," Greg said, "What's up?"

"I'm thinking about the paper," Toby confessed, "I really don't know what to write."

"Invitation holds," Colin said, lumbering to his feet, "Can I take that pen a minute? Thanks, Greg. See you guys after school."

They watched him go. Colin almost bounced right up into Gordon Keiler face with a notebook and the borrowed pen. Mr. Keiler listened to what it was Colin had to say and then beckoned the boy to follow him out of the cafeteria with a nod.

"What do you think it is?" Greg whispered.

"Damned if I know," Toby replied.

A sudden dark blur out of the corner of his eye made him twist his head around suddenly but all he saw was an older girl tossing her black hair around. He didn't think he'd been startled by flipped hair but there was no other explanation. Unless he was starting to see things.


	9. At Home

Author's Note: I know the names sound a bit ridiculous but they were selected for a reason. Don't bother to go look them up, though. They usually correspond to the character's purpose in this fiction (a little hint for you).

Author's Note 2: Someone caught a typo and I really have to thank them. Chapter has been updated with a few small corrections

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On the same day, at much the same time, a wardrobe door in Karen and Robert's bedroom slid open. A smooth, mottled face stuck out on the end of a scrawny neck, soon followed by a round body and little hands and feet.

The goblin tiptoed out of the wardrobe and waddled to the bed. He huffed and puffed but he climbed up the sheets. He rested for a minute. Then he sucked in a deep breath and clambered from the bed to Karen's vanity.

There he caught sight of himself and smiled beatifically with wide, toothless gums.

No one else would have smiled at him.

But he remembered what he was to do and he tumbled down from the vanity and waddled to the door.

It took this goblin around twenty minutes of intense activity but he searched quickly through the house to determine that no one was home. That done, he went to the front door and searched his pockets. Keys of all shapes and sizes came whizzing out. When they were lying around on the floor, the goblin pulled up the ends of his trousers to his knees and began to bounce.

On the first jump, he peered into the keyhole.

On the second jump, he stuck a suitable key in the lock.

The next two jumps he spent trying to grab the key.

He grabbed the key on the fifth jump and twisted it expertly.

The lock clicked open and the goblin landed on his round little bottom. He picked himself up with a groan and dusted himself off. Muttering to himself, he scrambled back up the stairs as fast as his protesting legs would take him.

The door he had so earnestly unlocked, opened to admit a man in a dark coat. It shut behind him and the substitute key was turned back in the lock.

The man looked around and he caught sight of the keys underfoot. The corners of his thin mouth drooped a little but he bent without a word and picked them all up. They went into his capacious coat pocket and he proceeded to walk the short distance to the living room.

The room was empty, as the goblin had ensured. There was a glass lying guiltily on the little wooden table beside the couch, as if abandoned too late at night to be put away immediately. The man took it in but didn't think anything of it.

He looked around cursorily and then picked out the family portrait on the wall. That he examined very carefully. He nodded once as if agreeing with himself and began to move much quicker.

Back went his hand into the capacious coat pocket. He took a pair of gloves from one pocket and slid them on. He removed a small compact from his other pocket and pulled out its long, thin antenna. He jabbed a button on the dial and watched the antenna begin to swing. The machine began to vibrate.

He moved it this way and that in the kitchen. The compact began to vibrate a little more frantically as the arm swung a little harder to the left.

The man stopped, looked sceptical, and peered closer at it. The arm fell off with a sudden crack.

He shook his dark head and put the compact back into his coat. The arm he picked meticulously up off the floor and stowed that away too.

Then he searched things by hand. It wasn't that he particularly needed the machine to tell him what he had already guessed. He'd brought it Up on trial, secure in the knowledge that the damned thing wouldn't work enough to interfere with his agenda. These things never did.

He dismissed the parents' room with nothing more than a light skim through their drawers. The study too didn't feel right. The spare bedroom was uninhabited and then he found the boy's room.

Toby had left his clothes in a pile on the chair and a pair of sneakers lying exactly in front of the door where people could fall over them. The roof sloped down over his bed and a large black sheet of paper was tacked up to it.

The man glanced up and couldn't see why anyone would want a blank sheet of black paper to look at while he slept.

He could feel it in this room but no matter how thorough he was- and the man was very thorough- he couldn't find it. It wasn't there. He even found the hole in Lancelot's back but there was nothing inside. Something had been, and his vision tipped a little when he put his fingers in, but whatever he guessed about the hiding place there was nothing there now.

He went cautiously to the window and twitched the curtains aside just enough to look out. He caught a glimpse of something in the bushes and that made him smile. He let the curtain fall back into the place and helped himself to the paper and pen on the writing desk. Then he went back to the master bedroom. He hauled the round little goblin back out from behind the shoeboxes in the wardrobe and stuffed the message in its hand.

"Take a message," he said tersely.

The goblin gibbered and twittered.

"No, to the lady," Gail replied, "With the white hair."

The goblin bounced for a minute and the gibbering grew louder.

"I do not care," Gail cut in, "She may say anything but give her that. Let her hang you if she likes."

The goblin let out a high-pitched string of words in its own tongue.

Gail doggedly refused to answer in that language. He squeezed his fingers warningly around the little thing's scrawny neck and waited until the goblin turned a sickening shade of green before unfurling his fingers a little.

The goblin gulped in a noisy breath and nodded quickly.

The man dropped him back down on the ground. He stood over him, arms folded.

The goblin picked himself off painfully from the floor and gibbered again. Then it laughed, a little wheezing laugh with pink gums, and then it skipped back to the wardrobe.

The man made his way out of the house.

Somehow, the other man in the bushes didn't see Gail exit. He snarled inaudibly to himself and shook his head as he got up.

It was degrading to hide behind a bush. But what else was he to do? His position here was precarious and Gail Kerr was legendary. If the Council had sent the best of the elite, it was best not to expose himself too quickly.

He'd been watching the house and the boy for days as per instructions. All it took was a little ingenuity and he had done it comfortably out in the open. One day as a gardener in someone's yard, another day as a passenger on the bus. Even a stranger to town who remembered visiting his aged aunt when he was a little boy.

And now this!

But guards are not trained in quite the same manner that warriors were. Warriors were trained to think, to strategize. Guards were trained to carry out orders.

Philosophically, he took up the pair of glasses that Edur had gifted him. He slipped them on. His hair turned white, his skin turned pink and he turned old. He ambled- as only old men could amble- to the neighbour's house two doors away. He sat himself down in the deckchair on the porch. He took the time to remind himself of where he had kept the body and determined to get rid of it the first chance he got. He wasn't too fussed about it. The old man had been doomed to die one of these years anyway.

Sheridan Tama was not aware that he was being observed by a pair of intent dark eyes.

Gail cursed whomever it was who had cut down the tree. The last time he had been to the Williams' house, he had perched in the tree to keep watch but now he was reduced, as his unfortunate target had been scant moments ago, to hid in the bushes. Hiding in bushes was a degrading exercise.

He waited there for ten minutes until the old man scooped himself off his porch and went back inside for something. When that happened, he stood up, brushed himself off and strode away.

Anyone who did see Gail walk away wouldn't have thought he was a suspicious character. He dressed in dark and sombre clothing, yes, but that wasn't unusual in the autumn. They would have seen a big, olive-skinned man with his hands in his pockets and a preoccupied look on his weathered face.

For the moment, it was best that it stayed that way.


	10. Up and Down

Author's Note: Sorry about delay... yadda yadda yadda. Actually, I was so embarrassed about some glaring slips and errors in my last chapter and I took a little more time over this one. Worse luck, I'll probably still have glaring slips and errors in this chapter. Well, you know the drill- let me know when you find them.

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"Gail Kerr has sent a message," Atropos announced, "I want it copied, thrice, and the original given back to me. Has anyone else seen it?"

"No, Eminence," Pieter promised, "I mean to handle it personally."

"I trust you won't tell anyone else what it says," Atropos sighed. She rose from her seat and picked up the goblet on her table. "So it was there, but not when he searched?"

"Yes, Eminence."

"The boy's things reek of magic he said," Atropos meditated. She placed the goblet back on the tray and pressed a button on the wall. "I want everything we have on this, Pieter. I want to know this boy's name, where he lives, who his parents are, and how he managed to escape the Labyrinth. I want to know why we have been chasing the woman for all these years when the brother was left unchecked."

"Ah," Pieter said delicately.

Atropos narrowed her eyes. "Yes?"

"I believe the King of the Dwarves asked much the same sort of thing when we first heard about… it."

"Darnell asked," Atropos was surprised but not shocked, "What was he told?"

"The Council ruled that the woman was key. In which case the brother was irrelevant."

"The Council," she echoed bitterly.

"Should I keep pushing paper at them, Eminence?" Pieter asked hesitantly, "They're beginning to question and I'm running out of forms."

"Oh, Gods." Atropos sank into her chair and put her hand up over her eyes for a minute while she went through some quick calculations. Whatever the results were, she decided it was best not to dally any longer. "No. Save the forms. I'll have Felix call council. Gerome is fairly sensible and all I need is one gainsay. Thank you, Pieter. See to the message."

Pieter left with all due deference and a glance of sympathy. Things were not growing any easier day by the day and times were certainly getting interesting.

He had an unaccountable wish to actually see all these events he was validating in his thick journals. Not to participate, perhaps, but to be an all-seeing eye was strangely inviting. Pieter indulged in a little daydream for a minute or two.

He wouldn't have found a lot to be interested in. Nothing much was happening amongst the various main characters of his saga.

Gail had disappeared, as befitted his experience and method of operation, and Toby was on his way home from school. The boy had a bag slung over one shoulder and a hand in one pocket. He was whistling tunelessly and trudging with the careless ease of one who didn't realize he was resting in the eye of the hurricane.

Pieter would have been most dissatisfied.

Toby wasn't. Toby didn't like unexpected things that 'happened' to him. Adventure and fun were all well and good but he didn't like it when he didn't know what the story was. Missing pieces and ambiguous endings were seriously destructive to his peace of mind.

Especially now. Especially when he had only one week between him and his next doctor's appointment.

His Mom would make him go, Toby realized gloomily, because he'd made such a fuss about Sarah's book. He hadn't meant to, not like that. He'd just been bothered by it. But it was that time of year again.

His Dad was beginning to look a little haggard too and just underneath a very real concern for his father, Toby sulkily wanted to know why he had to see a doctor when his Dad didn't. No one forced to Robert to see a shrink. But everyone assumed that just because he was a kid, he'd been affected more.

Toby liked his doctor. Really he did. Doctor Gray was a nice man. He was easy to talk to. Toby just didn't like the way he felt when he walked out of a session. Drained. Limp like cooked noodles.

Exposed.

It was embarrassing to be that exposed. Only Greg was supposed to hear those kinds of things out of Toby's mouth but it was second nature now to talk dutifully to a doctor and afterwards he'd feel uncomfortable about it.

So no, his little tantrum about the book was preying on his mind. Greg said it was just one of those things, like kids with a security blanket or an ugly plate that mothers kept in pride of place in their houses because it belonged to their great aunt or something.

As Greg put it, "Everyone's got something. Colin's got that key ring of his. You know, the one with the penguin. I've got my pen."

Toby supposed Greg was right. Everyone had something they clung to for security's sake but most people didn't get questions about whether they had unhealthy attachments.

Everyone knew why Colin kept that key ring. It was from his brother and everyone knew about Colin and his brother. And Greg swore blind his lucky pen was the pen he used to write the paper that got him the only A in a class of miserable C's. So both those things had personal explanations.

Toby's explanation for the book was that it was Sarah's. Did he want to read it? No. Had he ever read it? Well, yes, once or twice. But had he liked it when he last read it? No. He'd even admit he'd only read it because Sarah loved it.

He'd thought it was all a bit soppy himself.

Of course, when Sarah'd read it to him, he'd liked it better. She'd changed the story for him. Put in lots of fun and game. And the King had been a proper villain and the girl had been less of a martyr and all in all, Sarah's imagination had been wild in those days.

Toby stopped to look left and right before he crossed the road and meditated that he didn't remember when she'd stopped telling him that story but it had coincided with the approximate time that she'd moved away to the City and started working. Before then they'd had a blast.

They'd had this secret train tunnel at one time, which was only a playful interpretation of the pattern on the living room carpet, but it had wound around and around and gone to amazing places Toby wouldn't even have dreamed about.

Eventually everything had led home, too, which was nice when he'd been eight and ready to go to bed.

He unlocked the door and went in, wiping his feet carefully on the mat because he knew what his mother would do to him if he didn't. She'd never hit him but she had a temper. She'd yell. And Toby hated yelling. Yelling always made him feel guilty.

He found enough jam to make a sandwich and took it upstairs with him. Technically, food wasn't allowed in his bedroom, but he'd tended to take that as more of a guideline than a rule. At any rate, he didn't think anything horrible would happen if he broke it.

The first thing he noticed was that Lancelot was sitting on top of his bed.

It took him a minute and for that minute Toby stood there with a sandwich in one hand and a bag in the other, blinking at the sudden sight of Lancelot in plain view. The bedrooms of fourteen-year-olds were not supposed to have old teddy bears in plain view.

"I don't remember taking you out," he said out loud, dumping his bag in the corner. "Did I?"

He couldn't recall.

"Maybe Mom wanted something."

He smoothed down the fur on a stubby snout with the back of his hand and leaned down, stuffing the bear back where he belonged. Then he sat there and meditatively finished his sandwich.

The Mysterious Circumstance of the Bear in the Evening was not a mystery Toby was inclined to bother too much with. In all likelihood, his mother had wanted to do laundry and snuck a look under the bed. It wasn't as though Toby had anything else under the bed. He'd been much too clever for that.

Of course, a nasty little voice cooed in his head, she might have found that other hiding place.

He uncoiled slowly, not sure he wanted to know. Slowly he put out one sneakered foot and then the other. Slowly he stretched out his hand and picked up the big book of trains some strange person had given him one Christmas. Slowly he opened it.

And sighed with relief.

Greg had left it behind and really, Toby hadn't wanted to keep it for as long as he had. Those sorts of pictures made him uncomfortable. Very erotic and all that and he enjoyed it when he could ignore the part of his brain that scoffed at himself for being so affected by such rubbish, but definitely not something he wanted his Mom finding anytime soon. And Greg couldn't have it at his house because Mrs. Emily Symons had found his hiding place and it wasn't safe to take it back there yet.

Besides, Toby was, sort of, enjoying it.

And the house was empty.

But it was one of those times and he felt more uncomfortable than red-blooded and he put it back inside the book of trains and stuck it back at the bottom of the precarious pile.

The secret was to keep it out in plain sight, just out of the normal reach of inquisitive mothers. Karen might check under beds ostensibly for laundry but she had no excuse for messing with the desk. Toby saw to it that she didn't. So mostly, hiding objectionable magazines in other books in plain sight on his desk was a stroke of dashing ingeniousness.

"Toby?"

Karen's voice so close to his door shocked him enough that he sprang away from his desk in guilt.

"Mom! Hi! Are you home?"

He ran to the door and opened it, barging out before she could barge in. "Hi Mom," he said enthusiastically, and gave her a hug.

"Ow," she complained, "Toby, my back! Ow!"

"What?"

"Aah, nothing. Ow."

"Sorry, did I hurt you?" he asked anxiously.

She rubbed her back and stretched it a little. "No," she smiled, patting his cheek, "I was standing awkwardly. And they always told me children were a pleasure and a pain. So, how was your day?"

"Fine," he said.

She waited expectantly.

"Yes, we had English today," he said, knowing exactly what she was waiting for, "The new teacher came in and did his thing. He's not bad."

"Is that so? Good teacher, then?" Karen asked avidly.

"Don't know, yet," Toby pointed out, "We only had the one class. He seems okay."

"Okay good or okay normal?"

"Just okay. I don't know yet."

"Okay." She smiled at him again and moved to her room. "I'm going to go for a bath and get changed. If your father comes home early, tell him to start dinner, will you? I've had a long day and he promised he'd cook."

"Dad's cooking?"

"Do you want to cook, Toby? Because I'm not. So it's your Dad or you. Choose."

"I was just saying he can't cook like you," Toby said gallantly. He grinned at Karen as she fluttered her eyelashes playfully and pretended to drop a curtsey.

Toby went back to his room and sat down at the desk. He resigned himself to trying to start his paper but didn't particularly want to. Still, the sooner the started it, the less stress he'd have later on. And he didn't want to get too stressed; his mother would try to get an earlier appointment. She'd probably even call it an emergency. And his father would back her so Toby couldn't hope for a reprieve from that quarter.

He even went so far as to pick up his pen and put it expectantly to paper.

But his mind went blank.

Sighing, he put down the pen and stared vacantly around him, thinking of how best to waste his time. Surely there wasn't anything he could do if his mind wouldn't work? Unbidden, his eyes landed on the book of trains.

He sniffed, felt guilty, and looked pointedly in the other direction.

Which took him to Sarah's book.

It looked even worse now that it was dried out. The pages were warping and the cracks were getting bigger as every second passed.

Toby winced and tried to imagine how Sarah would react if she could see her book now. And then he tried to imagine where Sarah was in any case. But that one was too hard. Sarah had been the one who was so good at making up stories. Toby's done the usual thing with pirates and smugglers and wizards. He'd never actually been able to see the things that Sarah saw.

Then he tried to imagine the kind of people who could steal half-sisters out of spare bedrooms but that didn't work either.

"Toby?"

He welcomed his Dad with relief. "Hi. You home?"

"Seems so. What're you doing?" His Dad came in and sat down familiarly on the bed. "How was your day?"

"Not bad," Toby said agreeably, "You? How did the presentation go?"

His father shook his head. "Fine, fine. Went through without a hitch. The client looked happy with it. Let's see if we get it."

Toby nodded and they stared searchingly at the floor for a minute in companionable silence. Toby was just thinking that he needed to see whether that spot on his floor was fluff or a stain when his father startled him by clearing his throat.

"Is that the famous book?" Robert asked.

"What?" Toby looked at the book on his desk. "Oh, Sarah's book. Yeah. It's in bad shape. 'M really sorry about that."

"I'm sure we can get it fixed," Robert said automatically. He got up and strolled over, picking up the book and gently turning a few crackling pages. "Sarah used to act it out in the park."

"She told me."

"She even had this long white dress. It was an old costume dress of her mother's, you know. She used to put flowers and ribbons in her hair and memorize all the words." Robert put the book down. "Well. Finish your work quick, alright? Dinner's almost ready."

Toby felt even worse about the book than before.


	11. Inside and Out

The door opened very quietly as if someone kept it well oiled. Which, in the realm of possibility, was not yet that improbable. Toby shut it behind him and looked around nervously.

No one else was around.

"Er, hello?" he called. Not very loudly. Just in case.

No one came forward.

So the boy shrugged philosophically and waited, looking around to pass the time. Everything in the store was unnatural cramped up together. Shapes blended and created fantastic new beings.

That table there, for instance. It was a scratched and broken old thing. It even tilted one side below the other. There it crouched in one corner like a wounded animal. The clawed legs tucked up beneath it made it fierce, hackles raised. Any moment now it could pounce. Splintered teeth sharp beneath the lid. Eyeless and scarred into this shape.

Toby didn't even realize that his pupils had dilated in brief panic until a quiet voice said, "Good evening."

Toby startled and twisted his head around in fright.

The man didn't react beyond a faint movement of the head. "Ah yes," he said, "I recognize you."

Toby nodded and took a deep breath to steady his nerves. "I came in a week ago," he told him, "About this book."

He took the book out of his backpack and showed it to the man.

"Er, I'd still really like to get it fixed," he ended.

The man looked at the book. "I'm not sure this is worth the time and effort," he said, "It looks somewhat worse than I remember."

The faint trace of a foreign accent was still in that quiet voice. British, was it? Or something. It didn't matter. Fixing the book mattered. That was important.

He cast another look at the desk in the corner and it was just that- a desk.

Somehow Toby still felt uneasy.

"Did you call the firm?" the man was asking.

"I lost the number," Toby admitted, "I was hoping you could give it to me again."

"If you'd like. Come here."

The man beckoned him to follow and went to the counter. He went behind it and searched through a little drawer.

Just inside the counter, a sparkle caught Toby's eye.

He stared at the brooch in fascination.

"Here you are." The man noted his gaze and began to smile. "It is rather pretty."

"I was just looking," Toby declined, "My Mom's birthday's next month. I thought, you know, something like that."

He pointed to the brooch.

"Would you like to see it?"

"No! No, I-I can't afford antique stuff."

The man looked at him and for the first time Toby was close enough to note that there was something unusual about his eyes. Something eerie. Something… discoloured?

"My dear child," the man smirked, "Who said it was antique?"

Toby blinked.

"I distinctly remember showing you the little figurine we found at a flea market when you last came. I also remember telling you she was worthless."

The man slid open the cabinet door and removed the display case of jewellery. The brooch he picked up and offered invitingly on the palm of his right hand.

The delicately moulded dragonfly glimmered in the somewhat suspect light of the shop.

"You see," the man said suddenly, "What we have here is a junk shop. Old, unwanted things from people's lives. We wipe away the dust, fix tatters and tears, and put them in here. Other people find a second life for them. And then they will probably find their way to another junk yard."

Toby took the brooch and looked it over. It was pretty, even to the eyes of a fourteen-year-old. Or was that the only reason it did look pretty? After all, what did he know about brooches and 'women's things'? Still, he couldn't be entirely sure but he thought, maybe, it was exactly the kind of thing his mother liked.

He gave it back carefully. "It's still probably too expensive."

"Old is not automatically expensive. That brooch is fifteen dollars. The stones are glass; the gold is plate; the designer is unknown."

Toby looked back to the brooch on the white palm with much less respect. "Junk jewellery," he said before he could stop himself. "Er…"

The man threw back his head and laughed. "Exactly," he crowed.

"Er, no offence, but I can't buy junk for my Mom," Toby explained.

"Ah, then you'd prefer something like this?" The man's hand dived back to the tray and nimbly picked out a bunch of flowers in garish coloured gems. Compared to the neat little dragonfly, the thing looked awful.

"That's expensive?" Toby demanded, pointing to the flowers.

"Certainly more than the one you selected," the man answered conservatively, "Well, it was made by a jeweller fairly well known at the start of the century. All things considered, a fairly interesting piece. Was this more what you were looking for?"

"It looks sort of fake," Toby commented.

"Ah, but one man's rubbish is another man's treasure," the man murmured, "And the reverse holds true as well."

Both brooches went back into the tray and the case was put back into the cabinet. The man closed it up and put both hands on top of the counter, leaning forward on them slightly.

He seemed about to say something when a bear of a man appeared just behind him.

"John, have you got… oh! S-Sorry. I d-d-didn't know you had a c-customer." The man stopped short and began to stutter.

"Sam, this is the young man who came in about the book," the first man said.

Toby agreed as though he needed to second an alibi. "Hi," he said shyly.

"Hi," Sam said, waving, "Is that the book?"

He picked it up and his fingers moved gently along the cover as he turned it over and over in his big hands.

"You know, it looks worse than you said," he remarked.

"Yes, I am aware of that. Was something wrong?"

"Yeah, I can't find the pliers left on the table. Did you put it somewhere?"

"No, Sam. I never interfere with your tools."

Toby looked from one to the other. The one standing straight with an elegant hand upon the counter and a drawl in his voice, the other hunched over at the shoulder with an oil-stained shirt and meticulously washed paws. The clarity of difference was almost in extremes.

"Okay," Sam said meekly, "Sorry to bother you." He handed back the book. "John, the chest's done. I need to go now but you call Blackie and tell him to hurry it up, okay? I want it by Friday."

Whatever this mysterious 'it' could be, John only nodded and Sam vanished.

John didn't seem perturbed about the sudden interruption of tradespersons in his store. Instead he slid the card across the counter. "There you are."

"Thanks. And I really did like the brooch."

John's eyes glimmered humourously at him. "Did you indeed?"

Toby shifted from foot to foot. He smiled and backed away. "I've got to catch a bus."

"By all means, yes."

Toby fled, and bursting out of the dark little antique shop was like coming out of a dream. The sudden displacement of form and space was enough to make his vision blur.

He leaned over with his hands on his knees and examined the pavement as if it were the most fascinating this on the planet. On closer inspection he was really examining the inside of his eyelids.

"Are you alright? Williams, isn't it?"

Toby straightened up with a jerk. "Sir!"

"At ease, Williams. We're not in the army," Gordon said laconically, "Are you alright? You look pale."

"No, I'm fine, Sir, thank you," Toby answered hastily. He felt his ears go red as the blush began to spread. "Er, thanks," he said lamely.

He'd been stuttering and giving thanks a lot in the past while. He wondered, briefly, why.

"Not at all," Gordon took a step back and took his leave. For a moment the boy really had looked ill but if Toby insisted that everything was okay, so be it.

By the time Gordon turned the corner on his way back to the car, Toby had already hurried on to the bus stop with the book in one pocket and the card in the other.

Toby was also beating himself up for forgetting that he still had that paper to write. And had just wasted an evening.


	12. Dark

Gail Kerr straightened up from his position against the backyard fence as a now familiar brown head wandered into view. He stayed perfectly still but his eyes followed Toby as the boy stalked up to the door, opened it, and then vanished inside.

Then Gail smiled thinly and left.

He took care to be seen by the old man in the house two doors away as he wandered back down the street.

Toby looked out of his window and wondered who he was, that man down there, strolling along in the centre of the road as if he owned the world. But he dismissed the whole thing when he turned his mind determinedly back to his work.

The faster he finished it, he reasoned, the faster he could forget about it.

He worked for most of the evening on his paper, laboriously making notes until he could get to the computer in the den and type it up. It wasn't hard, really, once he'd started.

He only stopped when Robert came to get him for dinner. "Almost the weekend," his Dad sighed, "It's been a long week."

It had been a long week. No one really wanted to talk much during dinner and Toby answered in monosyllables until such time as he felt more like talking.

Karen didn't push him. She assumed he was tired. She assumed he was in a mood. And she assumed that he didn't want to talk to anyone. She wasn't an unreasonable woman or mother and she gave him full credit for firmly but politely turning down her efforts at communication.

When dinner was done, Toby decided not to type up his essay. He chose to watch TV. His parents watched TV. And he went early to bed and stayed in his room reading comics.

His Mom came to say goodnight and she kissed him on the forehead.

Toby shivered in his bed in the dark. In his mind, people only kissed other people like that when they were going to leave.

Cautiously, when the door closed, he sat up and groped his way to his jacket, sticking his hand into both pockets until he brushed cold metal with his fingertips. He still hadn't put the medallion back. Not since he'd taken it out of Lancelot's neck.

He switched on the desk lamp and looked at it in the yellow light.

It glittered silver back at him.

"Don't tell anyone," Sarah had said. "Someone left it for you."

But who? And why? And how insane had Sarah had to be to make up something like that?

"Unless," he sighed, "Unless she thought it was real."

Which was nice. It was always nice to think he wasn't really meant to be worrying about an essay and doing the normal, boring stuff that thousands of fourteen-year-old boys did. Much as he loved his family and much as he liked his friends, it was nice to think maybe he was meant to be meeting more exciting people. Maybe even be some kind of prophecied hero in another dimension? Maybe have some kind of superpower that could save the world?

Toby sighed again and sat back down on the edge of his bed. He reached down, picked Lancelot up from underneath and put the medallion back inside the bear.

What was the use of thinking like that? What good did it do? He wasn't someone special; he was just a normal kid. He didn't even know anyone special. Except maybe Sarah and she was just… disturbed.

Nothing special about Sarah.

Toby got back into bed and pulled the covers up. The shadows made him think of the junk shop and he half expected to see that old battered desk lurch out of nowhere. He shivered again but closed his eyes.

He tried hard, deliberately slowing his breathing, mimicking all the effects of going to sleep. And eventually his body took the hint- he fell asleep.

But he also dreamed. And in his dream, he wasn't entirely sure where he was. There was a broken wall, he remembered that, but it was a broken wall that existed inside a room.

It was a wall that didn't seem to have any cause.

Toby looked at it from where he stood. Until he found he didn't know where he stood. He tried to think but it didn't seem important. So he moved forward to see where he was going. He squinted in the dark. A loose brick hit his foot but it didn't hurt. He just looked down and kept walking.

The wooden floor was rotten. Everything else looked like cement or stone. The wall was stone, that much was clear.

Toby could see the stone.

He couldn't really focus on how the dream went but just as he was approaching it, he found he was on the other side, looking at it from the other side.

And he just stood there and stared.

And then he was outside on the main street of town and there was no one on the road. No one anywhere, really. He was just standing there. With no hands.

He didn't know why he thought he had no hands because they were clearly there when he looked down.

He looked back up and there was a goblin.

That was where Toby's brain stopped short.

He sprang awake with a strangled cry, not aware that he had his hand pressed up against his mouth so hard his teeth were sunk into his palm. His heart was racing, pounding loudly in his ears. And one ear was already throbbing painfully from being pressed against the pillow.

But there. Right there. In the light of the moon.

What was it?

It was frozen in place. Staring at him.

Toby didn't dare breath or blink. It wasn't real, of course. He knew that! It was all part of the dream.

Except that he could hear and think and feel and when he slowly, slowly relaxed his jaw his teeth left a resonating pinch in his skin that made his brain jerk back into the present.

He gasped.

And blinked.

And the thing vanished.

Toby stared stupidly at the square of light on the floor where the little creature had been standing and couldn't quite wrap his mind around it. One moment he'd been looking at something, and then it was gone.

Had he really seen it? Had it been real? Had he been dreaming? Was he awake?

The window was open.

Toby got out of bed, shivering in the chill air, and pushed it shut in a hurry. Then he went back to bed and pulled the blankets over his head. He repeated a litany to himself.

"Just a dream," he whispered, "Don't be stupid. Just a dream."

He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself back into a light sleep. Dreaming of monsters under the bed.

But had he looked closer when he shut the window, had he been less involved in his own head, he would have noticed that there was a light on in the house two doors down. He could just see the back of the old man's house from his window but he'd never really bothered to watch.

Except that it was around midnight, when the street was dark and the trees and bushes were nothing more than strange shapes that crept around corners and hid in plain sight. To see a window with a light in it was astonishing.

Even more astonishing was the deliberate way that Sheridan Tama was quickly and efficiently sharpening a knife.

It was a big knife, though not particularly shiny. It looked well used. And there were notches in the blade as though it had caught in bone and been yanked carefully away so that damage was kept to a minimum. But at the moment it looked almost virginal. Clean and neat.

It was put down on a black cloth spread out on the tabletop.

Sheridan cocked his head and listened. And then he rose to answer the scratching at the door.

The man who came in looked no older than a boy himself but his features were schooled into a mask of stone.

"Well?" Sheridan asked casually.

"The boy woke up, sir," the guard said, "There are goblins in the house."

"Yes, there are," Sheridan agreed. He gestured the boy to take a place at the table. He picked up the black cloth in one hand and the knife in the other. "I warned you not to wake them."

"I know, sir. I opened the window without a problem but the goblin must have heard the board creak while I lifted myself up to the ledge. It caught me before I had the chance to see anything."

"All you had to do was take a look at the boy's room," Sheridan said impatiently, "Never mind the goblin! The goblins are not a threat to anyone. They should hardly be a threat to you."

"No, sir," the guard said submissively, "I apologize, sir."

Sheridan lifted the knife and considered his options. He could kill the young man for being such an oaf, which was what he was sorely tempted to do, or he could give it one more try. So far, his orders had been sent awry by Gail Kerr's abominable swanning around the territory. Sheridan didn't know if he had been spotted; Gail gave no indication of that. But surely the warrior was too intelligent? Surely Gail had some sort of suspicion?

In the absence of answers, his current orders were to wait and watch.

But- he looked pointedly at his knife- if things continued, then patience and secrecy would be a luxury they couldn't afford.


	13. Tempers

Toby left for school the next day with his hands in his pocket and a vague feeling of uneasiness. The brief glimpse of black had unsettled him.

It wasn't just the shock of a sudden moment of paranoia- a moment that, as it were, told him he wasn't as mentally stable as he wanted to be- but the bewilderment of not knowing what he was getting paranoid about. All he'd seen, as far as he could tell, was a dream.

He'd seen a little creature that looked like it had walked straight out of the illustrations for a book of fairytales. The proper kind, really, where the dangers were real and the hero had to fight more hardships than one generation of storytellers could think up. But out of the corner of his eye, there'd been something far worse.

And when 'far worse' was nothing but a half-realized description, he grew uneasy.

So engrossed was he in his mental ruminations that he barely grunted a reply to Greg's breezy intimation that it was a good morning.

He had hardly a word to say to anyone and went through the day in a rather dazed and confused manner. Greg tried to jolly him along, and when they had a moment, asked him what was wrong.

"Because," as Greg kindly put it, "I'll find out sooner 'r later."

Toby grunted and drank a soda.

"No, I'm serious," Greg protested, "I'm so bored I'll talk about anything."

For which Toby shot him a glare for his pains. "Talk to Colin," he answered, putting his head down on the table.

Greg shrugged. "He's gone off to find Keiler again. I think he's in love."

"What?"

"That got your attention."

"Shut up."

The noise in the cafeteria wasn't loud yet. It wasn't due to get loud for another ten minutes. But when it got loud, it got really loud. People wouldn't brave the noise unless there was nowhere else to go. And as there weren't many places in the school to go, they came to the cafeteria and desperately tried to talk above the noise. Which made more noise.

Greg and Toby didn't have a preference either way. The noise meant they didn't have to hold stimulating conversations but then again, the noise meant there were long moments when Greg had to quiet. Greg didn't like being quiet.

"Come on, Toby, what's up?" Greg wheedled.

"Nothin'."

"You sure?"

Toby looked at him in frustration and then sagged. "No. I'm tired. Had this nightmare last night and I didn't get much sleep."

"What was it?"

"I don't remember," Toby said vaguely. He didn't dare look up because he could feel that dark-eyed gaze on his face and he felt awful about lying to Greg.

Normally he didn't. He tried not to, and if he had to, he made sure it was a spectacular lie that Greg could swallow greedily because it was at least still amusing even if it was insulting.

But Greg got insulted when he was lied to. He hated being lied to. Worse, he got stroppy when he was lied to. The few times they fought were when Toby lied to him and didn't have a damned good reason why.

So Toby felt guilty and apprehensive and waited to see what would happen. He could hear what it sounded like in his head and he winced and cowered all by himself, without needing Greg to start up another tirade like the last time.

"You could just say you don't want to tell me," Greg said quietly.

Toby risked looking up. Greg was annoyed, but not, thank God, angry. "I don't want to tell you," he dared, hoping Greg would take it as joke.

Greg must have seen the bravado in his face because he grinned good-naturedly and said, "Fine, fine. See if I care next time."

"I won't hold my breath."

"Oh, you can hold your breath. And I hope you choke on it too."

"Ha ha," Toby said sourly, lips curving up in spite of himself, "So? What about you? How's your life going?"

"Well, I got a good night's sleep last night," Greg snarked, "And I got my essay done. What did you do yesterday?"

"Went back to that shop for another card."

"The antique store? Oh no."

"Hey, I'm just going to call the guys! See what they say. If they tell me they can't do it, I'll drop it. If they say they can, I'll ask how much. Then I can tell my dad and we'll work something out. Maybe do weekend chores in exchange for making him pay or something."

"Toby, I don't get it," Greg groaned, slapping his hand to his head, "This book is not the end of the fucking world! It's got nothing to do with you."

"You sound like my shrink."

"You haven't seen your shrink yet."

"So what?"

"So you're not thinking straight."

Greg realized he'd said the wrong thing because Toby's face went stony and his fingers froze. The next moment, before Greg could even figure out what he'd really said wrong, Toby had slammed away from the table and gone off fuming.

Greg tried calling after him but Toby either couldn't or wouldn't hear him. So Greg damned him and let him go. He went off himself to find someone else to talk to even if he didn't say very much. Mostly, he sulked.

Toby saw him in class after that but they didn't look at each other. Not even in English, where Toby took a seat behind Greg and walked past him with no indication other than that he refused to acknowledge him.

Toby wasn't paying much attention to any of his subjects. But most of his teachers knew his case history enough to let him be. Early traumatic experiences could manifest in bouts of unfocused concentration. Or so they estimated.

He drifted in and out of classes, heard one word in ten and vaguely felt worse for not knowing what was really going on around him. He had one optimistic moment when he thought he could ask Greg for a summary after school. An unguarded look sideways at Greg's calm, somewhat summer-browned face reminded him that he was, in fact, in a stand-off with his best friend. Which was far more depressing than anything else could be and made him feel even guiltier for overreacting.

Which made him even angrier.

He estimated that if Greg could sulk, so could he. And if Greg was standing on his pride, so was he. And if Greg…

"If this class is interfering in your train of thought, do let me know," Keiler broke in.

Toby's eyes snapped up. He stared uncomprehendingly at Gordon for a moment, blue eyes wide in surprise. But Gordon wasn't looking at him. He was looking at Freddie.

"Well?" Keiler prompted.

"Er, I'm sorry, what?"

The man's eyes went ominously narrow.

"I-I mean," Freddie stammered, "I didn't hear you, Sir. I'm sorry."

Gordon watched him while the entire class held its collective breath.

What they were waiting for, none of them could have said. He was powerless, really; just a teacher in a school. What was the worst he could do? But for some reason, the class truly believed that upsetting Mr. Keiler was not something to take lightly.

Not when it was clear Mr. Keiler was in a foul mood.

Usually he was a good teacher. He wasn't the warmest person in the school but he had unexpectedly strange bouts of humour. His rendering of some dame's monologue in the text in a high falsetto had had the class laughing in awe and delight.

But today there was none of that. Gordon Keiler watched Jake as though deciding whether he wanted to take things further. And when he didn't, when he turned his back on the boy and calmly asked Greg to do the same reading, Freddie almost felt as though he'd prefer the punishment to this apparent rejection.

Nothing more was said. Mr. Keiler talked and the class listened. No one dared ask a question. He was polite and calm but no one wanted to risk it.

Toby pulled his head out of the clouds especially for the occasion, a little too nervous of that sharp tongue to set himself up for the same humiliating experience as poor Freddie. Who was sitting with his eyes fixed intently on his copy of the novel, cheeks crimson. Toby didn't plan on ending up like him.

It was almost the last class of the day. One more after. Just one more. Toby wanted to escape. Other people wanted to escape. It had been a long week and it wasn't even over yet.

The bell went and everyone let out a sigh they hadn't known they wanted to let go of. Most of them were already piling up their books. Toby shot a glance at the back of Greg's head but that dark head was bent down over as Greg fidgeted with something.

Toby stayed where he was because he was screwing up the courage to offer the olive branch. It wasn't like Greg would make fun of him for it, but it was a humbling experience and never pleasant.

"We start Shakespeare next week so… Sit back down!"

That bellow startled everyone.

The Indian kid, with one hand on the door, went a sickly shade of white and froze. Everyone else sat down in a hurry. Freddie, who had been about to get up and get out, thumped back down on his chair as if his knees had turned to jelly. Someone's books slipped out of their nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor but the terrified student didn't dare draw attention by picking them up.

Gordon was clearly no longer in just a bad mood; he was furious. His jaw was set so hard Toby thought he could hear teeth grind from where he sat.

Gordon moved over to the door, put one hand on it and jerked his chin back towards the rest of the class.

The Indian kid fled and sank into the first empty seat he could find.

"I am not an unreasonable man," Gordon said, his voice barely raised to carry around the silent room, "But, as I said, I expect some basic rules to be followed. Here are three more- no one is to leave their seats until I say they can; no one will leave this room until I say they can; further more, no one will so much as close their books until I say the class is dismissed. Are we clear?"

No one said anything.

"I asked if that was clear," he repeated.

There were a few nods but still no one dared to say anything.

He didn't seem to mind so much, since he gave a curt nod. He was just about to say something else when an older kid barged in at the door but stopped short at the sight of the class still sitting meekly in their chairs.

Gordon held up a hand. "Wait."

The boy looked taken aback but he stayed silent.

"Go out, knock and wait until I say you can enter," Gordon said.

The kid flushed but he obeyed. He stepped back out, shut the door, and knocked. Toby looked around and everyone was staring at the door as if fascinated by a snake.

"Come in," Gordon said.

"Look, I'm sorry. I was only…"

"Really." As soft as it was, his voice lashed out like a whip. "I am not your friend. I don't care to be addressed by the word 'look'. Start again."

The boy looked very much as though he wanted to slam the door and leave. But he took a firm grip on the handle and said, "I'm sorry, sir."

"Better."

"But I have a class in here now. Since the bell went I thought…" he trailed off, suddenly losing his composure.

Gordon waited with all outward patience for the end of that sentence and then said, "I have no trouble with you thinking. But in future, knock before you enter my classroom. And if I do not say you can enter, don't. Now kindly get out again."

This time, the door clicked shut in a silence so dread most of the students in the class startled like ponies at the relatively loud sound.

"Shakespeare next week," Gordon announced, suddenly clipped and cold again, "If anyone fails to bring their texts, I will make them leave the room for every period I teach that play."

He left the speech there and deliberately turned his back on them, gathering up his own things in silence. From the looks on their faces and their silence, he guessed that not one of them would even move if he didn't give them permission. That thought brought a thin smile to his face. Which gave him an idea.

He turned around and smiled brightly at them. "Since you are all in such a hurry, I expect the essay a day early. Which means it is due on Friday, not on Monday. I will give you until the end of Friday to hand them in but anything later will need to be accompanied with a note from your parents. Class dismissed."

Everyone got up in a hurry, not entirely sure why they were still in a rush, but nevertheless desperate to leave before any other bad news was forthcoming.

Toby felt his jaw drop but he went with the flow, somehow ending up quite comfortably behind Greg and next to Colin. After such a class, it didn't seem important that he was in the middle of an argument with Greg. Both exchanged shocked glances and kept walking to the next class.

Gordon Keiler walked down the corridor just behind them but for once, he had nothing to say to them.


	14. Rain

Author's Note: Sorry about the [long delay. I've not had a chance to put this up until now. Apologies.

------------------------------------

By the time Friday ended, Toby was much calmer.

Since no fight could sustain itself against the onslaught of an infuriated English teacher, Greg was speaking to him again. There had been no goblins on the Thursday night and the essay, for all that it had bothered him, was easier to write when he was racing a deadline than when he was trying to be organized.

It was a hopeless cause, he realized. Sarah had always said he had the Williams' genes when it came to time management.

At least he'd got the paper done. Whatever it read like, he'd handed it in knowing perfectly well there wasn't much more he could have done in the circumstances.

So things were good.

To make things better, he was going out on the weekend. His mother had been driving him up the wall. What was more, she knew it.

"I know how you get before your meetings," she said sympathetically, "So here's some money. See if Greg wants to have some fun."

Greg did, in fact, want to have fun. They agreed to meet up in town on Saturday. There wasn't much time to arrange things but then neither of them really 'arranged' anything. Places, times, intentions, everything was vague.

So Toby decided to go early. His parents were always up early. And Saturdays meant he could sometimes wheedle his dad into making pancakes. Which, unfortunately, didn't happen that day. But still, he was in a good enough mood to decide he didn't want pancakes anyway.

He picked up his jacket and slung it on any old how, racing out of the door with a muttered, "I'll see you later, then."

"Wait!" his dad bellowed after him.

Toby stopped short on the porch steps and almost fell over. "What?"

"Take the cell. Any trouble, give me a call," Robert ordered, "Be home by six. And that cell had better be on when I call it."

"What if we go to a movie?" Toby demanded.

"It will be on," his father said bracingly. Then Robert went back inside and shut the door.

Toby scowled at the door but then again, he had just been handed the cell phone. It was a good phone as far as these things went and his self-esteem went up by several notches. It was humiliating that he wasn't allowed one as a matter of course but then his parents had some shockingly old-fashioned views. Well, old-fashioned views and an incredulous belief in all those horror stories about kids with cell phones and lives of crime.

He stuck the phone in his right-hand pocket.

Just as he was doing that, with the sun blinking red into his eyes, he looked casually across the street and eyed the man standing against the blank wall.

He didn't recognize the stranger. The guy was olive-skinned and wore black, which was exciting, and Toby amused himself for half a second with thoughts of car chases and urbane criminals. But Toby couldn't see his face from where he stood so he shrugged his shoulders and moved on.

He got to the bus stop two minutes later and almost bumped into a young woman who appeared out of nowhere in front of him.

"Sorry," he said, and walked around her.

She smiled fleetingly and he thought he saw that she had a tooth missing. When he turned back to take another look, she was walked rapidly into a store.

Then Toby felt his blood run cold; the man in black- and wasn't that a comical phrase- was following him.

At least, Toby's brain had just yelped that at him when the man abruptly changed course and went after the woman into the store. Neither looked like the type to want cheap children's clothes.

Toby pulled his popping eyes back into his head and forced himself to calm down. There was no point getting paranoid again. Particularly when he didn't know what he was getting paranoid about.

So there was a guy who looked like he belonged in a movie, but so what? Maybe the guy was some kind of nutcase. Maybe he dressed like that because he watched too many action flicks. Maybe he was someone's grandson and the woman was his sister or something.

Toby resolved that he wasn't going to let a coincidence ruin his Saturday of fun and he stared resolutely ahead until the bus came. He got on the bus and sat down.

He stiffened when the man got on the same bus a few seconds later, but since the guy sat with his back to him and didn't appear to even notice he was there, Toby decided he really was just imagining things.

The woman was nowhere in sight.

The bus took its own time getting into town but Toby hopped off on the main strip and stretched. There weren't many people out at a quarter to nine in the morning but the place would fill up by ten.

He looked up at the sky and didn't like that it was drizzling. Still, Toby quite liked the rain.

He zipped up his jacket and looked around. There was a café that hadn't opened yet on his side of the street that had an overhang. He trotted up and stood underneath it while he attempted to pull out his cell and dial Greg's phone number.

He stood there, with the dial tone in his ear, and his brain froze.

The man was back. He over on the corner, looking right at Toby with a very intent expression on his far-away face.

Toby ended the call and tried again, his fingers shaking. He willed the man to go away or look somewhere else. He even turned his back, counted to four, and hoped to heaven there'd be no one on the corner when he looked over his shoulder.

But the man was still there. Still leaning against a brick wall. Still calmly watching him.

"Hello?"

"Greg!"

"Yeah?"

"Greg, it's me. There's someone following me," Toby hissed into the phone. "What do I do?"

Greg yawned on the other end. "Where are you?" he asked.

"In town. Near the bus stop."

"Mitcham Street?"

"I guess. Greg, where are you?" Toby demanded, darting scared looks around, "You were supposed to be here!"

"Calm down, Toby," Greg yawned again, "Who is this guy?"

"I don't know him. That's the whole point. He's following me and I don't effing know him. You're supposed to be here, anyway, so where are you?"

"How d'you know he's following you?"

"What?"

"How d'you know this guy's following you? Maybe he's shopping."

"I saw him outside my house and now he's here. And he's not shopping! Are you coming or not?"

"I was asleep, man. It's not even nine!"

"Well, now you're up, can you get your butt down here?"

The outraged silence on the other end spoke volumes before the very candid narrative of how Greg intended to go back to sleep.

Toby hadn't really expected Greg to take the next bus out. He knew he was panicking even if he didn't quite know how to explain why. He accepted that he was being an idiot about it. But he was pathetically afraid of being alone when there was someone following him.

"But okay," Greg said, "I'm up now. I can be there in… Mom, can I go out?"

Toby winced and pulled the receiver from his ear. He couldn't hear what was said on that side but Greg came back on and said he'd be there in at noon.

"Three hours?" Toby repeated in disbelief.

"I need to go see my aunt. It's her birthday today," Greg explained, unexpectedly apologetic, "I'll try to get there soon as I can."

"Oh, right."

"Yeah. Look, my mom says she'll drop me off at the diner. We can go for a movie like we said yesterday."

"Fine. But you're buying the popcorn."

"Deal. What're you going to do about the guy?"

"I'll go somewhere there's people," Toby considered uneasily. He looked around again. "He's gone again."

"Oh good."

The phone line went dead and Toby ended the call. He stuck the phone back into his pocket without registering that there was something already there. Looking around finally, he couldn't see his tracker any more. Whoever the man was, he appeared to have disappeared.

Toby took a deep breath and got out from under the overhang, sticking his hands in his pockets for some kind of warmth. He sighed and wished he'd asked Greg to bring an extra jumper for him.

Three hours! He grumbled about it in his head, chin sunk to his chest. In three hours he could go home for fresh clothes. But if he went home now his mom wouldn't let him out again until it stopped raining. So. No going home.

He elected to stroll along the shop fronts for a while. The building kept the wind out a little and as soon as he found someplace he could browse in for more than a few minutes, he could get out of the rain.

He stopped in front of a sport store for a few seconds to look at a pair of sneakers. The back of his neck prickled and he whipped his head around, finally frustrated enough to be angry.

There was no one there.

He turned back to the window but the shoes held no more charm. So he picked up speed and walked away.

And saw a blessed sight.

"Hey," he called loudly, breaking into a slight jog.

A gloved hand stilled on the key for a moment. "Ah," the man from the junk shop smiled, "My most persistent customer. Back already? Never tell me the next card is required."

"No, no." Toby grinned and raked a hand through his hair, pulling water out of it. He stared at his wet hand for a second in bewilderment and then shook his head and wiped his hand on his jeans. He caught the slightly raised eyebrow directed his way. "It's raining," he explained.

"So I see."

"Er, yeah." Toby grinned sheepishly. "I'm waiting for a friend and I thought I'd come in here and browse for a while?"

"By all means," the man replied amiably, "Come in." He pushed the door open and directed the boy to enter before him.

Toby went in and shook his damp head to get rid of the rain in his hair.

Without even a few lights on the whole thing looked like some abandoned attic, with everything piled up any which way. Gramophones on dining tables and cupboard doors open to display a collection of little china dogs.

He saw movement from the corner of his eye and cricked his neck turning to look.

The man had his back to him but he was humming quietly to himself as he fiddled with something on the counter. There were no other sounds in the store. Not from outside, not from inside. It felt like the rest of the world didn't exist in this place.

Except for bits and pieces that didn't have a home, Toby realized. It was a sobering thought that he had taken refuge in such a place.

"What's your name?" came out of nowhere.

"What?"

The man sighed. "I asked for your name."

"I'm Toby."

The man nodded. "John," he said in reply, holding out his hand.

Toby smiled and dared to ask, "You don't sound American. Are you British?"

"I am, actually."

Answers were encouraging, Toby found. "How long have you been here?"

"Two years."

John saw a slight shadow cross the young face. He wondered why for a moment but didn't care enough to ask. He excused himself and went inside to grab a pen. While he was there, he looked back once to see what the boy was doing.

He smiled when he saw Toby flip through a box of old records. He knew what was in there and he was sure there wouldn't be anything a teenager would want to find. No matter how obscure their tastes were.

He went back out and Toby looked up and smiled at him.

It was, he noticed objectively, a delightful smile. The sort that doubtless made many people want to smile back at him. And then be his best friend.

"When will your friend be here?" he asked casually, checking stock.

"Er, in a couple of hours?" Toby fidgeted when John looked at him. "I'm not gonna hang around all that time," he reassured him, "Just until the rain slows a bit."

"Oh, as long as you like."

Toby opened his mouth to say something polite when the door opened and an elderly lady came in, shaking rain off her umbrella. A wisp of cold wind swept in from the outside and crept up his shirt.

He shivered and huddled closer into his clothes.

The next second an elegant hand touched his shoulder. "Jacket off," John ordered, "And go in there. There's a dry shirt on the table. Put it on over your t-shirt."

The lady was looking at them suspiciously. Probably because Toby's jaw had dropped in shock.

People just didn't go around ordering young boys into private rooms! Particularly unmarried men of a certain age. People just didn't! And if they did, the young boys were supposed to run a mile to the police station and report it.

"Now," John said softly.

Dumbly, Toby found himself shrugging out of his jacket and handing it over.

"Inside," John directed.

Toby went obediently.

The lady's frown was getting more pronounced. He could hear her voice from inside, asking if he was John's son.

"A young friend," came John's pleasant voice, "I wouldn't like to send him back home with a cold."

That sounded all right. And Toby was already too bewildered to find much wrong with the expressed logic. After all, he was being followed, he was wet and cold, and he was on his own.

In a way, it was kind of nice to put on a dry shirt and slump at a table with his head pillowed on his arms, feeling strangely cared for.


	15. Shadows and Sunlight

Toby wasn't thinking too clearly about how far away the police station was, or even where it was, so much as the fact that the shirt didn't really help him feel much warmer.

And then John came back. He had the jacket in one hand and in the other… oh!

"This fell out."

"Right. Didn't know I still had that."

John slung the jacket over the other chair and put the book carefully down on the table. He eyed it for a moment, not happy about this recurring symbol. Every time he saw the boy the book was thrust back into his hands.

His life was peculiar enough without bothering about why Toby was a persistent customer who bought nothing.

"I feel that there is something wrong here," he began, "Would you like to tell me what it is?"

Toby pretended surprise. "No, nothing. Why should anything be wrong?"

"And why are you here?"

"Just to browse. I'm waiting for a friend," Toby protested, "Look, I didn't ask to be sent in here and kept dry. I'm sorry if I did something wrong and I can leave anytime you want."

"Yes, you could leave anytime," John pursued, "I have to say I'd like to order you out."

Toby stared moodily down at the table. "It's not a big deal," he muttered huffily.

"Yes, I quite see that."

John elected to take a seat. He was confused and not a little suspicious about this boy who kept coming to him about an obscure play. Since rational explanation escaped him, John tended to want answers. Of some kind. Of any kind, really.

"What is it you want?" he asked quietly.

Toby really was surprised this time. His acting skills improved tremendously. "Nothing! I told you!"

"You gave me some facts. I'm not sure I believe them."

Toby felt his nerves jangle unpleasantly against that slow drawl.

"Are you in trouble?" John asked.

"What? No!" No, not really. "No, I told you. I'm just waiting a friend. I'm sorry. I mean, it was raining and I-I like this place. I thought you wouldn't mind. I can go if you want?"

John steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, taking the time to process the entire thing in his mind.

Toby felt more than a little awkward. He didn't like where the questions were going. And how was he going to explain that he thought he was being followed? His best friend couldn't believe him; why would a total stranger believe different?

"No," the man said finally, putting his hand down and standing up, "You can stay. Browse where you like."

He was about to leave when he remembered the book. He picked it up and felt that if the fates required that the damned thing be thrust into his hands again and again, he might as well take some control over the situation.

"I'll give those people a call. If you like. They may be able to give me a free assessment."

Toby blinked and scratched his nose. "Thanks. Er, you don't have to…"

"I might as well," John laughed, "Try not to break anything."

Toby hadn't expected this. He honestly hadn't even thought beyond getting out of the way of the man in black. And when John had begun to question him, Toby had thought for sure he'd be pressed harder. John would demand more.

Didn't all adults do that?

All the adults Toby knew, at least.

He dropped his head back into his arms and pressed his cheek against the sleeve of the shirt. It smelled of fresh laundry. Which was, in some way, too normal for such an abnormal day. But oddly nice.

He stayed where he was for a few minutes, just because he was too embarrassed to go back out.

He wondered exactly what the man thought he was doing, popping in and out like a jack-in-the-box. After all, if there were certain things that people thought about men who kept young boys in private quarters, then there were certain things people also thought about young boys who trailed behind personable men.

And Toby was sure he didn't want to be one of those young boys.

Of course not!

But since John was currently safe at the moment, apart from the fact that strangers were dangerous in Toby's world… why was John safe?

Toby looked up and squinted at the far wall. He hadn't really given it much thought but it stood to reason that there was something really strange about the fact that he felt, for want of a better word, 'safe' around the man.

What was it? That John laughed at him? Because he did. Or because John didn't really mean anything to him? Possibly that last one. Definitely that last one.

Which reminded him that neither did the man in black. Toby didn't know who he was, and the man didn't mean anything to him. But somehow, well, he was terrifying. He was personal. He was getting closer.

Toby turned his head compulsively to the other side to escape the very thought of him.

The next time he gathered his thoughts…

"Are you awake?"

He opened his eyes and took a sudden gulp of air.

"Easy, easy." John was sitting in the chair to the side of him, a concerned expression on his face.

"What's the time?" Toby asked immediately.

"Ten," John told him, "I heard your cell phone ring." He held it out.

"Thanks." Toby wiped his mouth with the cuff of his sleeve and pressed buttons without thinking. "Greg."

"Greg? Your friend?"

"Yeah. Er…"

John stood up. "Make your call. I'll be outside."

Toby waited until there wasn't anyone in the room but himself and then dialled. It got picked up on the second ring. "Hey, Greg. Where are you?"

"Still at my aunt's," came the heavy sigh, "Hey, is it okay if I don't come today? It's just… my cousin's got this new game and he says he'll let me in if I, er… did you say something?"

"No," Toby said, "I didn't say anything. I groaned. And then I thought I'd tell you you were a shit but I didn't say anything."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, that helps."

"Don't be such a pig."

"Me! I'm not the one who's left his friend high and dry."

"I'm not…"

"Yes, you are! I told you there's someone following me and you decide you don't feel like coming down here? What kind of help is that?"

"Toby, no one's following…"

"Right, you didn't believe me. But then you're not here so you don't get to say that."

"Fine. Don't be such a girl."

Toby didn't trust himself to say anything really worth it. "You know what, you have fun. Say hi to your cousin. And you're a shit person."

He ended the call and switched the phone off. That way Greg couldn't call him back. That way he wouldn't have to have that long discussion that Greg would invariably refuse to have. And maybe neither of them would end up saying something they'd really regret on Monday morning when there was no one else to talk to.

So he sulked for about a second and then philosophically decided that if there wasn't any reason for him to hang around the shopping strip anymore, he might just as well go for a movie on his own. Dark theatres were just as anonymous as junk shops.

He went out and John was reading the Times, relaxed against a cupboard and a set of keys in hand. Jacket on.

He looked up when Toby came out and flipped the magazine shut. "I couldn't help overhearing."

Toby didn't really have anything to say. So he shrugged.

John stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded to the door. "Come on. Take a break with me."

"No thanks."

"It wasn't an option."

"Where are we going, then?"

"No other questions? No protestations?"

"What's the point? You said I didn't have a choice," Toby pointed out.

John pulled the door open with a flourish. "Then we had better get on with it. Time is money, as they say."

Toby followed him, waited while he locked the door, and said nothing more until John sat him down at the table and a big bowl of ice cream ended up in front of him. He didn't even remember ordering it. Not that he was averse to it. If he had ordered for himself, it would have been this.

And he didn't even flinch when that blasted book was laid on the table between them.

"I called them," John began, "I've arranged to drop it off at their store tomorrow morning. Is that alright with you? It might take them a few weeks but I can give you a call when they're done."

"Okay."

"Very well, then."

The book vanished just as fast.

Toby stuck a spoonful of ice cream in his mouth and meditated while it melted on his tongue. Then he asked, "You think I'm an idiot, don't you?"

"Pardon?"

"With this book. You wouldn't care so much about a stupid book. Would you?"

"This isn't my book."

"But if it was, would you?"

"Personally, I would leave it as is," John said decisively. He pushed his cup away and watched the teenager across from him.

Toby was eating ice cream with the single-minded devotion of someone expecting to scrape up an answer from the bottom of the bowl.

John was very intrigued. Toby- and honestly, what an old fashioned name!- Toby was not precisely John's idea of a normal teenager.

Weren't normal teenager brats? Weren't they trouble? Weren't they amoral little bastards who couldn't think beyond their hormones and the latest celebrity trend? Weren't there computer games and chat rooms involved in every teenaged conversation? According to the media.

More to the point, didn't this peculiar boy have any of those vices?

John shook his head and leaned back and settled in as comfortably as the vinyl allowed. "I can't help but feel this book is more important than you say," he remarked.

Toby shook his head. "Not really," he answered.

"Perhaps I was mistaken," John agreed.

Toby looked very cagey. He ate another spoonful and rolled it over his tongue to stall for time.

John looked at his watch but didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave.

"It's not my book," Toby informed him, "It's my sister's. She'll pretty much kill me if she sees it like this."

"Ah, I see." John began to smile. "This is guilt, then, is it?"

Toby flushed a little. He didn't really known how to respond to such a judgement. Then again, he had ever before gone out for ice cream and coffee with a strange shopkeeper.

"No," he said.

"Of course not."

"It's not guilt," Toby corrected, "I'm not guilty of anything. I just want to get it fixed for someone else. Because they'd feel bad about it."

John nodded slowly and waited. Because there had to be more to the story than just that. He waited for quite a while. But nothing more was forthcoming. And just when he thought he'd better end the entire conversation and forget about his curiosity in the boy, he caught a glimpse of a man outside the large window.

A big man. Dressed in black. With olive skin and a concentrated way of sizing someone up.

John caught his eye and felt every muscle tense.

The man began to smile. And then walked back out again.

'_There's a man following me'_. The boy had told his friend that on the phone. Was there anything in it? 

"You said you were being followed?" he asked abruptly.

Toby shook his head quickly.

John dropped the topic immediately. He was resolved that he didn't really want to know. He didn't want anything to do with it.

He slid out of the booth and buttoned up his jacket. "Well, I need to go back to the store. I trust you can manage by yourself for another hour. If you come to me next weekend, I might have some news about your book."

Toby nodded but he didn't get the chance to say anything. John had already left.


	16. Unexpectations

Author's Note: I know this has been a while coming ('And the understatement of the year award goes to…') but I've had a little trouble juggling the needs of reality with this fiction. I do apologize. I hope the long chapter makes up for it.

Author's Note 2: 'Sharar' is a Hebrew word meaning 'enemy'. I've adapted it to 'Sharan' as a name for the guards working against Edur's forces.

----------------------------------------------------

Wystan stood up when Edur entered the room and bowed.

"Sire."

"Have we received word, yet?"

"Yes, Sire. I contacted the agent and he says that we have the boy on close guard. He also tells me a sharan has been spotted."

A spasm of annoyance crossed the well-bred face. "I don't like that. I was told we were clear. Who is it?"

"We have no corroborating evidence, Sire, but we believe it is Gail Kerr."

Edur tensed. Wystan tensed. The clerk on the other side of the open door tensed.

"Who is the agent Up there?"

"Sheridan…"

"Oh yes." Edur suddenly smiled and clapped his hands. "I expect to hear good things from him soon."

From anyone else, Wystan wouldn't have taken the sentence amiss. People in high positions were always aware of lesser beings of whom 'good things were heard'. From Edur, Wystan's busy brain twisted things around just a little.

"Should I tell him to kill?" he asked bluntly.

Edur looked shocked. "Kill? Why should he? Who would he kill? Not Gail Kerr, surely!"

"Sire?"

The inane smile slipped. The voice grew icy. "Kill them all. But not yet. If Gail is up there, there have been… developments. The boy is more important. If it comes to it, kill the boy."

"Sire, without the boy we have no hold on the High King."

"With the boy on the loose, the High King has a hold on us. The woman can take us nowhere."

"Yes, Sire."

"Anything else? Do we have any news of the High King?"

"No. None whatsoever. He appears to have vanished."

"The High King does not vanish, Wystan," Edur murmured, playing a beam of light over his ring, "He is hidden. Sometimes permanently. Since we haven't hidden him, I really wonder who has. Anything else?"

"Not from Aboveground, Sire."

"As you were, then. Go on, Wystan. Your desk looks empty without you."

Wystan re-seated himself only when Edur had left his apartments, watching in case of last minute surprises. But there were none this time and he heaved a sigh of relief and sat down, only to find a note upon his chair.

It read: Rest on me. I am your comfort.

Wystan looked it over and felt a light shudder go up his spine. He opened his drawer and put the paper aside, knowing it was useless but unable to simply crumple it up and throw it out.

Edur liked to play tricks on his ministers. But lately they had grown increasingly alarming.

There was no telling what the note might mean.

He shut the drawer and resolutely turned his thoughts to other things. More important things. Things such as youths and agents and interpreting the Steward King's commands.

He bit his tongue in concentration and tried to visualize the workings of a world he had never seen in his life.

Toby would have been surprised to find how hard he found it. As a youth of no great maturity, Toby couldn't comprehend that not everyone had lived in his world. Or that not everyone had had his experiences.

He didn't go for a movie after all, not feeling in the mood for it. But he did go to the mall and he kicked around in the small stores for a while, looking for a present for his mother. He had been half decided to buy the brooch but now he wasn't convinced of his welcome back at the junk shop.

John was, he decided, a very strange man.

There was a CD he thought she'd like. But he wasn't sure. He bought it anyway, too tired at this point to care overmuch that he might not have found the 'perfect' present. It was a neat, easy gift; Karen never expected much from him anyway. Toby wasn't an observant type.

He put the CD carefully in his pocket and felt a pang when he remembered the book he'd forgotten to take out.

Why had he been carrying it around? Surely he would have noticed the weight of it? He definitely noticed its absence!

It was a jittery feeling, the loss of that book. It wasn't his book, besides, and he was vaguely worried that something worse might happen to it out of his hands. Perhaps John might leave it somewhere. Or forget. Or maybe John was the kind of guy who'd take the book and sell it? Could it be valuable?

Toby had just believed everything the man had told him but he didn't really know if any of it was true.

Then again, why would John lie?

The boy rubbed his eyes and felt the last reserves of his good humour curl up into a tight ball in his chest. The day, starting out so bright, felt worse now that evening was there.

The clouds were growing darker, heavier. The wind was blowing so hard against the streets and buildings. People didn't smile on days like this; they hurried along, shivering in their jackets, scowling when they had to wait for a light to change or for an old lady to get out of their way.

It was a depressing kind of the day.

And the sky was pressing down in a threatening kind of way.

Toby couldn't help thinking of goblins and nightmares. He shivered too and wished he'd worn something warmer. Then he wished he'd ingested something with sugar. Something sweet could always get his fingertips tingling and his blood flowing. Something sweet always put him in a good mood.

Sarah had said he was a sugar addict.

"One day," she'd said mournfully, "You'll end up in a corner dive with all the other addicts, drinking sodas like there's no tomorrow. And Dad'll have to pay for your habit until you decide to quit cold turkey."

He'd thrown a cushion at her. Stuck his tongue out at her and told her she was making up stories again.

She'd always made up stories.

Some had left him a medallion, indeed! As if strange things like that ever happened in the real world.

Toby snorted and decided to buy that soda on the spur of the moment. So he liked sugar, so what! It wasn't really like being addicted; he wasn't taking drugs or smoking. He didn't have to steal for a little bit of joy on a bad day.

He shrugged his way into the diner on the corner, fumbling in his pocket for change. Suzi knew him by sight and he hadn't been here in a while. He grinned at her over some guy's shoulder as she caught his eye while she took an order.

She nodded at him and waved hello.

Toby liked the diner. It wasn't really a diner but someone had gone to an awful lot of trouble to make it seem like it could be. He wasn't entirely sure why. A lot of students and young men came to eat at the diner, probably because it was the only place that sold lots of food very cheap. Apart from McDonald's and even a McDonald's could get boring.

Suzi did decent business.

He looked around while he waited for Suzi to come back. Another young girl with a ponytail raised an eyebrow at him from behind the counter but he shook his head stubbornly and looked away.

And caught an amused glint in blue eyes.

He looked closer and the amusement only seemed to deepen.

"Hi, Mr. Keiler," he said, going up to the man.

Gordon nodded affably, no trace left of the bad humour he'd been in the last time his student had seen him. "Williams. Hello. What are you doing here?"

Toby looked around for a second and then grinned a little wider. "Planning to eat, Sir. You?"

"Being interrupted during mealtimes," Gordon retorted, "Sit down if you must."

"Er, no, thanks. I've got a bus to catch in a few minutes," Toby said, wiping his wet hair out of his eyes, "I came in to get a soda."

"It rots your teeth, they tell me," Gordon said. A dark brow rose and the thin lips tipped up at one corner. "Does that ever worry you?"

"I don't think so. I don't drink it that much."

Gordon nodded and looked out the window on his other side. "Fair enough. One should always live dangerously, I suppose. Where do you live?"

"Huh?"

"It is quite late. Do you have a long ride home?"

"Oh. No, not really. Twenty minutes at most. If I get the lights. It's just down the street, turn left. Keep going for a bit." Toby pointed vaguely out the door, flicking his fingers in the general direction of outside. He turned back to look and his brain was still fascinated by the sight. "Do you come here often, sir?"

"I live around here."

"Oh."

Toby was obviously contemplating the sudden appearance of his literature teacher in his own backyard, so to speak, and Gordon knew this breed of curious boy. He smiled a twisted little smile and tapped the plastic packet next to him. "I went to see a friend about a car."

"Are you buying a car?"

"No. My friend was buying one. She wanted me to see it."

She. Toby tried to picture who the 'she' was. For all he knew, Mr. Keilor's cousin or mother or aunt could be running around his little town, trying to buy cars. Then again… it could be someone else. A certain type of 'she'. Toby couldn't really picture Mr. Keiler with a 'she'. He couldn't really picture Mr. Keiler looking at cars either.

Suzi came back and Toby excused himself to get his soda. While he was paying for it he felt a presence just behind him.

Gordon nodded and paid as well. Then he looked at his student, currently swallowing the contents of a can of coke as if his life depended on it. "Have you got what you wanted?" he asked.

Toby coughed, wheezed and said, "Yup. Suzie always gives me extra. I don't know why; I tried to steal a cookie from her once."

"A cookie."

"Yeah. I was eight and Greg dared me to steal it. Stupid, right?"

"Very."

Toby laughed and went out.

Gordon emerged after him, blond and slender in his long dark coat. "I wonder if anyone has ever denied you anything you wanted," he mused.

Toby frowned in utter confusion, walking nimbly through the crowds while managing to dart enquiring glances back at his teacher. For the most part, the whole meeting was entirely surreal. And not a little embarrassing. It was always embarrassing meeting a teacher out of class. Strangely enough, Mr. Keiler was not quite as acidic out of class. He was almost gentle.

"A social phenomenon, Tobius." Gordon smirked down at him and repeated his note of caution again. "Sometimes a charming smile will pay for any sin no matter how large or small. I suspect you've managed to trick that poor woman into thinking your actions were perfectly harmless."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"Quite alright. You were only eight. Everything is charming at eight, I'm told. At eighteen, not as much."

Toby nodded and slung his bag casually over his shoulder, bouncing along from one side of the street to the next. He noticed the man with him didn't bounce, he strode. Straight through the crowds. Cutting through them with nothing more than arrogance.

Toby stifled a grin at that thought. Mr. Keiler certainly was arrogant. But not in a bad way. Toby quite liked the arrogance. It made for an interesting person.

"Sir," he ventured, "My stop is just here. I've got to, er…"

"I'll wait with you," came the curt reply.

The concept was so foreign that Toby actually considered it for a moment. "Why?" he asked frankly.

"Because a boy of fourteen should not be out when it's turning dark." Gordon appeared to be distracted. He was looking at something else and though Toby tried to look discreetly over his shoulder, he couldn't make out what it was. "Strange things happen at night."

"It's stopped raining, you know. I've done this heaps of times. I'll be fine."

"Whether you will be fine is not the issue. I'd rather make sure. I like facts, Mr. Williams. Remember that in your next class."

Toby sighed and shook his head. "Okay."

"To be fair," Gordon continued, almost as oblivious as if the boy had never spoken at all, "To be fair you did decently enough in your assignment. I believe I'm handing them back on Tuesday. You passed at any rate."

"People failed?"

"No one fails in English." Gordon made it sound as though the failure wasn't likely because he didn't permit people to fail in his subject. "It's not possible. Everyone passed. But you've done well for a first paper."

"Thanks."

"I never did the paper, Williams."

"Right. Sorry."

"Do you often feel the need to apologize?"

"I was being polite, sir."

"Yes, but within reason, Williams. We're not in the army. Is this your bus?"

"Yeah. Um, thanks…" Toby flailed desperately, trying to think of what to say without sounding insane. He liked Mr. Keiler. More to the point, he wanted the approval that seemed so hard to get. "Um…"

"Go on up, then, Williams. I'll see you on Tuesday."

Gordon watched the boy fling himself up the steps and in, not waiting for the elevator. He smiled slightly to himself and wondered once again how he'd managed to stumble onto the last school where innocents attended. Tobius Williams was an innocent. All of fourteen and his greatest adventure was avoiding the smokers who lurked in the boys' toilets while trying to rob their stash and hide it away. Someone had told him about that little escapade.

The fool had been lucky to escape with a black eye.

He'd made a note to speak to Greg Symon about that little pastime sooner or later. If this business of stealing cookies was any indication, those two needed to be reigned in. Gordon didn't like interfering with his boys but he'd be damned if he didn't stop them breaking their necks on some ridiculous thrill spree.


	17. Closing In

Author's Note: I am SO, SO SORRY to leave this story hanging for over six months now. Three wonderful people were kind enough to send me an especial message asking if I was alright (Mab, Anij and anyone else who wrote in, I did get your messages even if I horribly didn't reply). I'd like to say that I'm fine. I was just out of inspiration on this fic and I feel I still might be a little too ambitious with it, but I am giving it another shot, and I'm hoping you all will forgive me.

--

"Toby, there's a phone call for you," Karen shouted.

She couldn't hear anything stampeding down the stairs, so she sighed and turned back to the caller. "I'm sorry, Greg. He must be asleep. I'll tell him you called. Was it something important?"

"No. Can he call me back?" Greg asked.

"If you want. Anything else?"

"No, that's it. Thanks. Bye, Mrs. Williams."

"Bye, Greg."

Karen put the phone down with a sigh and rubbed her nose in quiet contemplation. It wasn't that the phone conversation bothered her. Greg was gregarious and called often. What bothered her was that Toby was still asleep at ten o' clock in the morning. Surely it wasn't healthy to sleep so much? He'd gone to bed early, too.

She chewed her lip in uncharacteristic indecision for a moment and then decided against going upstairs. She wasn't, as she chose to remind herself, the butler. If Toby came down, he'd get his message. Otherwise, he could stay up there and sulk.

Toby wasn't sulking. Far from it.

He was sitting irresolutely by the window in his pyjamas and wondering how long it would be before he could stop going to a doctor because his mother worried. At this rate, he was going to develop issues from expectation.

What was he going to say? That he'd seen a puddle of blood on the carpet? That he'd been terrified? That he missed Sarah?

He didn't really miss Sarah. He just felt awkward about her. Everyone expected him to feel worse- or just more- and he didn't. What 'more' could he feel after two years?

He rubbed his cheek absently.

One small part of his brain noticed that the old man was walking slowly in his backyard. Without a cane.

But the rest of his brain didn't register it so he didn't take much notice.

Eventually he sighed to himself and felt claustrophobic sitting in his room so he dressed for the day and went downstairs. He nodded when he heard that Greg had called but he didn't choose to speak to his best friend just then. Not until Greg had stewed for a bit longer.

His mother finally had something to say about his latest bout of silence. Wanted to know why he was so distant. Wanted to know if there was anything wrong.

"You can tell me, Toby," she pleaded.

"There's nothing wrong with me," he frowned, "I'm fine."

"You were sleeping so late. Didn't you sleep last night? Did you have a nightmare?"

"I wasn't asleep, Mom. I was upstairs reading." Not entirely true but not entirely false either.

And it still didn't work. "I know it's hard for you around this time, dear," she urged, "You can talk to me if you like. I'll understand."

"But there's nothing to talk about!"

Karen clicked her tongue and whisked the remains of his breakfast away. "Well, I hope you talk to someone about it, Toby, because it's not healthy to be so secretive."

"I am not secretive," he said plaintively.

But she wouldn't listen. Or if she was listening, she clearly didn't seem to be hearing what he was trying to say. Everything he said came out sounding wrong. So perhaps it was his fault?

He got frustrated. As a fourteen year old was apt to get. And he yelled. Also as a fourteen year old was apt to do. And he stormed out of the house and slammed the door when she told him sharply that she didn't like his tone of voice and he had better remember who he was talking to, young man, and be a little more respectful.

"Oh, please," he'd snarled. Which was entirely the wrong thing to say to an increasingly unsympathetic mother.

She set her mouth in that thin, pink line that he knew so well and it was all too much. Everything. The man in black and Greg's unusual betrayal and the world in general. Gordon Keiler's strange moods. Sarah. His impending doctor's appointment. English. Buses. Cities. Weekends. And the book was with John, whoever John was, and he wanted it back.

It was all he could think about at that exact moment. Nothing else mattered. Because if he did think of everything else he would feel a complete fool. And he was too angry to feel a fool just yet.

He banged the door behind him in spite of Karen's sharp demand that he come back and apologize. He strained to hear the sounds of it being opened behind him but she let him be and he was stalking alone down the road.

He stopped two houses away and looked back angrily.

Evidently Karen didn't want to know why he was behaving strangely if it meant ruining the appearance of peace in the neighbourhood. She probably didn't want people to know her son was a jerk, he thought sourly.

Well, if that was what she wanted, he could put on a show too. He stuck his chin up, turned around, and marched on with his head in the air.

There were very few places he could go in that particular part of town so he went to the general store and bought a packet of crisps. And then he walked. How long or how far didn't matter. No one took any notice of a sulky youth angrily crunching chips as he stamped aimlessly around corners.

Lots of boys did it. It was known locally as 'cooling off'. Occasionally a teenager would meet another teenager in much the same state, stamping up from the opposite direction. There would be a brief pause, a stormy undercurrent of hostility and then they would pass, bitterly certain that the other couldn't possibly have it as bad.

Since most people didn't attempt to stop youths on one of their cooling off trips, Toby was reasonably assured of a little privacy.

He crunched until there was nothing left and lobbed the empty chip packet to the street. It was littering and, if the signs were to be believed, littering was a criminal offence.

But he felt reckless and even small acts of rebellion were soothing to the soul.

However, small acts of rebellion also had the effect of making the rebel feel more than a little foolish. Toby stopped and looked down, deflating at the sight of the forlorn packet lying insignificantly on the street. He picked it back up.

What was the point of rebelling? The world didn't end if he threw trash in the street. It hadn't ended when he found a pool of blood on the carpet of Sarah's room.

Every year it was the same. People started looking at him funny, his father got quiet and sad and his mother started trying to talk to him. It never changed. No matter what he told his doctor, no matter what he told his mother, they didn't listen because, of course, adults always knew his mind better.

They got a snotty attitude about how he was young and they had all been young before him.

Toby hoped they had suffered as much in their youth. It was a backhanded kind of revenge but it offered some comfort.

He balled the crinkling rubbish in his hand and looked at the garish colours as they crumpled into indistinguishable lines and splodges.

That was when he heard it.

Well, he'd been listening to it for some time by this point, but it finally burst upon him that he had been listening to the inaudible sound of footfalls for quite some distance now. He sped up reflexively and then slowed down. No one overtook him and he had the feeling the person was keeping pace.

A sliver of ice slid down his spine and there was a slight burn between his shoulder blades. He knew the feel of someone watching him. He'd just been musing on how people watched him too much when they thought he wasn't looking. He'd learned to tell when there were eyes fixed on him.

He looked back over his shoulder.

The man in black.

Laughable as it sounded, he panicked. The man was dark, brooding, and clearly intent. Dark coat swinging behind him as he kept up briskly with the boy in front of him.

Toby sped up again, not quite believing that there was any connection. He stumbled a little but when he looked back again, the man quickened his steps as well and gave him a sardonic smile.

Toby turned back around and fled.

He didn't stop to think. He didn't care to find an explanation. From the base instinct lurking in his inexperienced and very panic-stricken mind, men who dressed and moved like that didn't necessarily give explanations. And if they did, the explanation probably wasn't welcome.

It was Sunday and he felt a breath caught in his chest at the sight of Mr. Van Horton in his garden. Just as he came up on the gate, Mrs. Van Horton came out as well, and she called to him to stop.

"Looks like a big emergency," she said, looking him over, "Is something wrong?"

Toby shot a look behind but there was no one there. The man had vanished. He shook his head and said everything was alright.

The Van Hortons said that boys would be boys and it was a good day for a run. They engaged him in a little bit of a chat, and waved him off with a hello for his parents.

Toby felt his heart slow to a dull thudding as he walked away. The hair on the back of his neck still prickled slightly, but there was no one behind him any more. He knew that, because he turned back to look.

Just to be certain, he turned his steps towards the park, preferring to be out in open spaces as opposed to quiet suburban streets. Even though people were out in their gardens in the middle of the day, it simply didn't feel safe to walk in territory that was not, so to speak, his.

He sheepishly kept up a careful watch on his surroundings. And at one point he thought he saw the young woman he had almost run into the day before. But she had her back to him and he couldn't be sure.

It wasn't important either way.

He put his hands in his pockets and remembered the book. The weight was missing; he felt almost bereft at the lack. And doubtful. After all, he really didn't know John. What if John tried to cheat him?

For all Toby knew, he could go back to get his book and John would simply say he had no idea what Toby was talking about.

No one would believe a teenager over an adult.

He got to the park and began to walk around the perimeter, nodding abstractly at the old man from two doors down as he puttered around the park.

As he walked, he began to notice a peculiar prickling sensation on the back of his neck. He whirled around but there was nobody there.

Nerves. It was just nerves. He continued on his ramble.

The old man hovered into view again and Toby smiled and said hello, passing by with a politeness that would have made his mother proud. And look! There was that woman again! She walked towards him, carrying a large shopping bag over her shoulder and…

Toby's jaw dropped.

The man in black suddenly stepped out from nowhere. He was there. He looked at Toby. His lips moved but Toby didn't know if he was saying something or just talking to himself but there was no mistaking the brows that lowered and the fierce glare of purpose on the olive-skinned face.

The man was between Toby and the woman and then, with a surge of adrenaline, Toby realized that he had really said something.

"Run."

Toby ran.

He didn't know where, he didn't know how, but he ran. And when he came back to himself, he was on the bus, squeezed into the corner of a seat with his hands pressed tight around the bar hold in front.

He trembled and fretted, heart in his throat, and stared wildly around. He couldn't go home; he was going in the wrong direction. And anyway, the man in black knew where he lived.

He needed to go somewhere he could call his parents. He needed to go somewhere he could think.

He needed somewhere he could hide.

When the bus stopped, he knew exactly where to go.

The bell jangled violently as he slammed through the door and the shadows shuttered in the sunlight and glass.

John put down the plate he was holding and sighed. "I had a feeling you would be back today," he sighed.


	18. Speak

Author's Note: Updates will go slow, I'm afraid, as compared to the usual way I like to update my work, but I'm hoping this long chapter will make up for the three days I've made you wait. And I'm so glad people are still reading this. Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. It makes me wonder why I didn't come back sooner!

--

"Come in here," John said abruptly, "Don't stand there cowering. Come on."

Toby went in thankfully. Whatever else it was, it was away from the outside world. There were otherworldly things in here, things that looked familiar but weren't, and they carried the feel of a place shut off from reality.

He sank down at the table and dragged his fingers through his hair, loosening the knots with a worried tug. "I'm sorry," he said.

John didn't respond right away. He watched first, as if coming to a decision within his own mind, and then took a seat across from the boy. He frowned slightly, not liking this situation at all. "Tell me what this is about."

Toby gulped. "I'm being followed. I'm not mad! There's this guy in black and I thought he was just someone new but he's following me everywhere. For two days now. And I saw him in the park and he told me to run."

"Run here?" John asked sharply.

"No."

"Then why are you here? What do you want?"

Toby was confused. The man, usually so calm and collected, was practically radiating tension. But not a nervous tension- anger. He was very angry; Toby could see that. He was practically seething, his jaw so tight it was stark and white under the yellow lights. "I don't want anything," Toby protested.

His pulse was beginning to race again.

"And this man? Who is he?"

"I don't know," Toby said, "Really. I don't know."

"Have you told your parents about this?"

"No."

John nodded slowly, an ugly twist to the corners of his mouth. "You expect me to believe," he said sarcastically, "That you have a man following you around town and you have not told your parents? Are you that stupid?"

Toby flushed in embarrassment and looked down at his hands on the table. His fingers were trembling, he noted dispassionately. And his nails needed cutting. But if his fingers kept trembling like that he didn't think he could trust himself to cut his own nails without causing some severe injury. He wouldn't even be able to hold the clippers, let alone cut straight.

"Where's my book?" he asked, looking up, "Do you still have it? Can I have it back?"

John stared straight at him for two chill, painful seconds before shaking his head slowly. "I don't have your book."

"What? Where is it?"

"I told you, I gave it in to be assessed. They'll probably get it repaired too."

Toby panicked. "But- but I didn't ask… I can't afford that!"

"Don't be ridiculous, I haven't asked you to pay." John finally unbent a little. "They're doing it in exchange for my custom. It will take longer, but it will get done."

"Oh."

John tipped his head to the side and suddenly, finally, smiled a little. But the smile wasn't reassuring. It was sharp and cynical, almost bitter. "You thought I sold it out from under you," he guessed.

"No!"

"Oh?"

Toby swallowed nervously. "Can I have some water, please? I- I can't… I don't feel so good."

John got up instantly. "Head down between your knees. I'm not calling any fucking ambulances around here."

The swear was shocking enough that it jerked a surge of blood up into Toby's cheeks. He blushed, though he didn't know why, and he did as ordered because it gave him an excuse to hide his face for a while. He turned it over in his mind but his mind was going to strange and unattractive places.

He said something to the floor under his feet.

"Don't mumble," John snapped, "What did you say?"

"Thanks," Toby said, looking up briefly.

There was no reply. But the water, when it came, wasn't simply banged down on the table in front of him. A well-shaped hand held it out and waited patiently until Toby reluctantly lifted his hand and took it himself.

John sat down again. He said nothing while Toby sipped his water. But when the glass was put quietly back down on the table, he had mastered the situation- and himself- enough to start the discussion again. "The man in the black clothes," he said, "Is he a dark-skinned person? Fairly tall? Clean-shaven?"

"Yeah."

"Ah."

Toby was surprised. "Why? Do you know him?"

"No. But I know of him. He came here after you left yesterday. He didn't say anything but I don't think he was interested in anything in the shop," John remarked, almost to himself, "I got the feeling that he…"

"That he?"

John stopped and shook his head. "It's a long story. I'm sorry, what was your name again?"

"Toby."

"Toby, yes. It's a long story, Toby, and I'm sure it's unsuitable for a stranger."

Toby snorted. "I just walked in here and told you I was being followed."

"Yes, but my circumstances are rather different."

There was the sudden sound of footsteps and Toby looked around in a fright, convinced somehow that it was the man in black.

But when the outer door opened, it was only Sam. He stopped short at the sight of Toby and looked enquiringly at John. "Hello," he said politely.

"Sam, good morning. Come in. I don't know if you remember him, but this is Toby. Toby, I'm sure you remember Sam."

"Hi," Toby said, trying to smile while his heart slowly stopped hammering in his chest.

Sam nodded at him. "I c-can come back later," he suggested, looking to John again.

"I'd appreciate that, Sam. But if you're very busy today, Toby and I can find somewhere else to talk."

There was no question but that they would talk. Toby was certain of it. John looked grimly determined, and Toby didn't feel up to leaving John's side just yet. Not with the man in black between him and the safety of his home. He posed as calmly as he could, because his pride wouldn't let him do anything else, but he could feel his leg begin to jerk under the table.

It hadn't done that since the first three months after Sarah's disappearance.

Sarah. Sarah and the book. Sarah and the carpet. Sarah and the tree. Sarah and the necklace.

On a whim, he put his hand in his pocket and the necklace was still there. It was coldly metallic and he felt a slight shock as his fingers touched. He let go quickly and left it where it was.

"Come, Toby," John said coolly, getting to his feet.

Toby stumbled up, hurriedly, waved to Sam who nodded back, and trailed quickly after John's straight, slender back. "Where are we going?" he asked.

John didn't answer. Instead, he walked on, without looking left or right or backwards. He gave the impression that he didn't care if Toby followed him or not. On the other hand, Toby got the feeling that if he tried to leave, John would find an efficient way to make him come back.

He followed, feeling less than happy, but keeping close. He stared around anxious but there were no strangers lurking. The only time Toby stalled momentarily was when John turned into the doorway of a residential building and went to the stairs.

"First floor," John said shortly.

Toby went up before him.

"Turn left. Flat six."

"Is this yours?" Toby asked.

"Yes. It's not my first choice either, I assure you, but in the absence of anywhere private, it will have to be my flat. Here. Take off your coat and give it to me."

John's flat was normal. Which Toby had not been expecting. And it was neat. Which Toby had. But it had a strange appearance about it. A kind of impersonal, noncommittal emptiness that had nothing to do with the furniture or the little pieces of life that were scattered around.

"Would you like something to drink?" John asked him.

"A soda?"

"Sit down, then."

John got him a soda and Toby perched on the edge of the armchair he'd elected to take. He could see the door from where he sat, and the telephone on the little table. He could see John, too, and he felt he needed to be this cautious for no other reason than that he really didn't know anything about him.

"I'm not going to hurt you," John said suddenly, "Relax. Drink."

Toby sipped compulsively and John sighed.

"I told you I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated.

"I know," Toby interrupted, not wanting to take it any further. "I know. I'm just… worried, I guess. From earlier. That guy was creepy."

"Mm. He was," John meditated.

Toby watched the man lean his head on his hand, strange eyes looking inwards to something Toby couldn't see. The blond hair catching on the long, slender fingers and falling straight on the back of his pale neck.

For quite some time he sat there, still and silent, apparently not aware that Toby was even in the room.

Toby became gradually aware that there was a clock in the flat because he could hear the seconds' hand tick away.

"I had the feeling that the man was more interested in me," John said suddenly, "Than in anything I was selling. If you tell me he's been following you, then it begins to make sense. You spent some time in my store. He could have been trying to find out why."

Toby nodded. "Maybe," he agreed.

"You're sure you don't know who he is?" John prompted.

"No." Toby brushed his hair out of his eyes. "I can't believe he came to your store. Are you sure you don't know him either? Has he been there before?"

John stared at him for a second and then began to smile. "No, I am quite sure that I don't know this man. Even if I did once…" He paused. "It wouldn't make much difference unless I met him in the last thirteen years."

"Why?" Toby asked.

"You've got a habit of asking questions," John remarked. But he seemed to relax into his couch. "I had an accident some years before. I suffered a head injury. I've lost my memory of everything before the accident. So if I have met this man of yours before then, I'm afraid I can't remember."

"Wow. That's…"

"Interesting?"

"Yeah. So you really can't remember anything from before the accident? Like, your family or friends? Things like that?"

"No. No family, no friends. I don't remember where I went to school, or whether I went to school at all. I woke up in a hospital bed, feeling awful. That was all." John stretched his legs out comfortably.

"That's cool. I mean, I didn't mean it like that, I just meant…"

"I know what you meant," John laughed, "And I agree. It is 'cool'. Sam has often told me so."

"Sam? The guy from the store?"

"Yes, Sam Brodeen."

"He's nice," Toby commented.

"Yes, he is. But he isn't what I wanted to talk about. Have you told anyone at all about this man who's been following you? No, you told your friend, didn't you? What was his name- Greg?"

Toby nodded. "He doesn't believe me."

John assured the boy that most adults would be more willing to listen. Particularly, as he pointed out, his parents and the police. Those two groups in particular would be very interested in hearing what Toby had to say about being followed by a man he didn't know.

They spoke for a while longer, and John had to go back to work. Toby went with him, not asking but assuming that it just wasn't time to leave yet.

But time was fickle, and very fleeting, and time slipped away much too fast for the both of them. While Toby was talking to Sam inside, John suddenly stuck his head around the door and demanded to know whether Toby's parents knew where he was.

Toby panicked. He hadn't told his parents, he said. He'd had a fight with his mother and he'd slammed out of the house. He'd only been cooling off and it was a wonder that he'd had enough change in his pocket to get on the bus because he'd bought a packet of chips and normally he didn't keep money in his pocket like that since he always managed to spend it so easily. And he'd forgotten completely and his parents were probably frantic since he'd missed lunch and it was now almost four in the afternoon.

John put up a hand to stop the flood of words from engulfing them. "Sam, can you watch the store for the rest of the day? I'll drive him back home."

"You want me to drive him?" Sam offered.

"No," John said, with unassuming sweetness, "I'd like to have a quick word with his parents in any case. Come along, Toby."

"No one has to drive me home. I can take the bus."

"You don't have any more change," John pointed out gently.

Toby deflated. "You don't have to talk to them," he mumbled, "If you lend me the money, I'll pay it back tomorrow after school. Really. I'm in and out of here anyway like a jack in the box; I'll come back again, I swear."

"I don't really care about the money either way. It is not, in fact, a fortune. I'd like to talk to your parents. Since I've had you, as you put it, bounding in and out of here like a jack in the box."

John didn't give him the chance to say no. Even though Toby argued uselessly all the way to his house. But John pulled into the driveway and Toby shut up because he saw, to his utter horror, the woman from before walk calmly past his house.

His blood ran cold. The world froze. When he looked down again, his hands were shaking slightly again.

He said nothing more against John's presence as they walked to the house.


	19. For Whom the Shadows Come

Author's Note: Erm, having said in the last post that updates would be slow, I truly never meant to update as slow as this. But I promise you, I'm back to working on this story, and hopefully the updates will appear a little quicker than every four months or so.

--

There had been something the matter with Toby for a few days now

There had been something the matter with Toby for a few days now. Gordon noticed it suddenly one day, walking casually across the yard. Toby was slumped moodily against a wall, chewing on his lower lip, still as a statue in the middle of lunchtime chaos. Greg too seemed a little lacking in spirits.

And Gordon had promised himself to keep an eye on them.

Still, there was little in class to complain of. Toby was an average student, though uninterested in the subject. Gordon suspected Greg did the work and passed it around their little gang. Either way he couldn't object. Toby and Greg paid attention, and even volunteered a pithy remark once in a while.

It had taken Gordon a few classes to get the hang of how to deal with sudden comments like that. He knew all too well that students could take full advantage of any teacher who stood up there like a dumb fish. He'd been lucky; he'd found a way to answer back. So there was a truce there, even respect.

The class, at least, enjoyed the floorshow.

Gordon ignored it. Mostly.

He didn't let it go too far, of course. He preferred to impress upon his students the wrathful figure of his first and last infamous temper tantrum. That way, a little lassitude on his part would not be taken as a free ride.

For the most part the class kept to their limits. He mused absently in the teacher's lounge towards the end of the day that he was not doing as badly as he had thought he would.

"Gordon?" Leonard called, sticking his head in at the door. "Got a minute? One of your students is asking for you."

Gordon frowned but got up, sauntering out casually and raising an eyebrow at Colin. "Yes?"

"Mr. Keiler, I, um, have this thing to discuss."

"About?"

Colin looked helplessly from Gordon to Leonard. "In private, please, Sir?"

Gordon crossed his arms. Colin was clingy, desperate for approval and neurotic. None of these traits were particularly attractive.

"How urgent is it?" he asked gently, "Can it wait until morning?"

Colin thought about it. "Yeah," he said reluctantly.

"Alright, come along. We'll find a spare classroom somewhere."

The next day, Colin was in better spirits, tripping eagerly over his feet as they attempted to actually act out 'Anthony and Cleopatra'. Gordon had been too tired to think up an actual lesson plan and he had a hidden agenda anyway- he watched his class.

Most of them had no idea what they were doing, in spite of being organized into battle scenes to give them a taste of what the literature really meant.

Jake was too busy talking to Melissa Brown in the corner, both pubescent and nervous.

Most of the other girls were swanning around, or looking timid and self-conscious. But a small group of students in the middle of the room were doing an amusing, if extremely ridiculous, job of keeping to the task.

Toby jumped sweetly out of the way of a flailing ruler and said something halfway to unacceptable, for which Gordon turned a deaf ear when he noticed that everyone laughed at it and didn't seem to care.

Someone had mentioned the sister a little while ago. He hadn't been paying much attention but he got the thought, unexpectedly, that theatrics might run in the family.

The boy was proving far more interesting that he'd first assumed. And far more likable.

Symon and Williams, between the two of them, had more spirit and soul than the rest of the class, Gordon considered. Symon was as remarkable as Williams. Both were clever, quick tricksters, with a lot of innocence in their respective faces.

Pretty faces, too, from an aesthete's point of view. Williams' was slightly that much more perfectly formed, Symon's nose being a little too big for his years. He'd grow into it with maturity but Toby… Gordon considered Toby would be beautiful as a boy and heartbreaking as a man.

Too many good things in one package. He'd known a few like that. They always had murky futures and he had seen brighter youths than Williams fall off the cliff altogether.

He dismissed them with scathing commentary on their lack of thespian ability and deplored the fact that not one of them had actually understood anything about the play at all. "We'll resume tomorrow," he said, "Sitting down this time."

The class went away talking at the top of their voices and Gordon was assured that he would receive a stern talking to about the discipline that teachers were expected to keep in their classes.

He had never paid it much mind before and didn't intend to start any time soon.

It was on his way out of school that day that he caught sight of a man dressed in black, someone who merely smiled and affected a small bow from the wait.

Gordon froze for only a moment and then shifted his eyes as if the gesture hadn't been directed at him. He got into his car and drove out. Along the way he spotted Toby, walking home alone.

Where was Greg?

He almost pulled over immediately, duty asserting itself, but he was not a fool and his brain was already presenting options without conscious thought. He drove past and parked at the first spot he found. And got out of the car.

Then he waited.

Toby had been thinking, and listening. So intent was he on keeping watch on what lay behind him, he was startled when he walked on someone's shadow.

"Shit," he gasped.

Gordon raised an eyebrow and the corner of his mouth twitched up. "Thank you, no," he said mildly, "Not in public."

Toby blinked and grinned. "Sorry," he said, relief palpable. Instantly cheered. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you."

"That was apparent." Gordon fell into step with him.

Toby glanced suspiciously sideways and up, but couldn't think of how best to phrase the question hovering on the tip of his tongue. "Are you going somewhere, Sir?" he asked curiously.

"Yes." Gordon waited.

"I thought you had a car," Toby replied shrewdly.

Gordon grinned internally. "I do." Alas, he had no time for word games and verbal sparring. "While I've got you here, would you please tell Symon to collect his book from me tomorrow morning?"

"I can call him," Toby considered.

He looked back at Gordon as the corner approached, wondering if Gordon would turn down the same street as him. As awful as it was to be seen walking after school with a teacher, his jangled nerves were beginning to soothe a little with Gordon's capable presence.

Though Toby did wonder what Gordon was doing there at all. Unless this was where the friend lived? The female friend?

Toby stuck his hands in his pockets and wracked his brains to think of something to say, unconsciously edging closer as the corner came up and a shadow crossed the street.

Gordon saw the shadow, and the internal smile dropped away. "I must leave you here," he said abruptly.

Toby steeled himself, plastering a false smile of bravado on his face. "Good night, Sir."

"At four in the afternoon?" Gordon smiled sardonically, "Enjoy the rest of your day, Williams."

He meant every word of it. From what he saw, from what he knew, as the shadow crept after the boy down the street, Gordon knew all too well that Toby was not going to have an enjoyable time of it.

Gordon just hoped the boy wouldn't have to be told.

He went back and found his car. He got in, turned the key in the ignition and drove 'home'.

When he got to his little matchbox of a dilapidated house, he made the usual face at the sight, uninspired by the weather-beaten clapboard and the broken rail on the porch steps.

"It's cheap," he'd been told. And there had been reasons for that.

He went in and switched on the light. He didn't react until after he had locked the door behind him. And then he said, "What in hell were you thinking, showing yourself to him? He's looking for bloody gangs and kidnappers, now!"

Gail stood up from the incongruously flowered couch and stretched. "I've received new information. We're going to have to do this by the skin of our bloody teeth."

"What? Like old times?" Gordon grimaced. He tossed his jacket over the back of a chair and loosened his tie. "What's the news?"

Gail scratched his chin for a moment, as if contemplating something. "I think," he began slowly, "That you'd better polish up your salute."

Gordon drew in a sharp breath. "He's been found?"

"He's been found. In fact, he's right here."

"Oh." Gordon looked down at the carpet and a certain phrase he'd heard recently that seemed to sum up the future perfectly came to mind. "Shit," he sighed.


	20. Authority

Atropos managed to keep her head as she presented herself to the High Council.

Atropos managed to keep her head as she presented herself to the High Council. Between the low ceilings, the avid stares from the peanut gallery- this quite literally referring to the peanuts traditionally sold in the upper viewing galleries- and the discomfort of her Court clothes, she felt she should have been congratulated for not turning the lot of them into toads.

Which, she thought irately, she could still do if they pushed her too far.

The Mage was not a subject of the Allied Kingdoms, but there were certain obligations… They questioned her at length about Gail Kerr's presence Aboveground.

"We suspect the medallion is Aboveground," she told them.

"The medallion is worthless."

"The magical components in the metal are unique, and capable of…"

Darnell, the King of the Dwarves, waved an impatient hand. "Trace amounts. Not a lot of point in finding it."

"The point," Atropos said gently, "Is in finding the Goblin King."

"I see." Darnell looked at her from over the tops of his glasses, his pinched lips pursed in thought. "Why didn't you come to us with this information? There are channels; and you have no jurisdiction over the Sharan."

"No, I do not," she agreed, 'But to the letter of the law, no one but the High King has that power."

"That's quibbling," Frederick declared robustly.

She ignored the interrupter and pressed on doggedly, raising her voice in challenge. "The sharan are the High King's Guard. It is their duty to be where the High King is. You and the sharan requested I assist."

"But the High King is still noticeably absent," Darnell pointed out, "And all you have is the Goblin King's medallion."

"I did not command Gail Kerr. I suggested a course of action that he chose to follow."

Atropos calculated the odds in her favour and decided. She swept to her feet and inclined her head coldly.

"If this," she said, "Was the reason that you summoned me from my duties, I must consider this a waste of my time. My presence here is a courtesy. Your questions are an insolence."

"In the absence of the High King, we must protect the Underground."

"You're questioning my efforts to do that."

"We question your secrecy."

"I have done as the sharan," she stressed the word, "asked. The same as I do for you. And since you talk of controlling the Underground, I'll remind you that there are strongholds against your control. The Mezzanine. The Antedilvan. The goblins in the Labyrinth. Edur and that little band of his in the east."

"Quibbling, quibbling," Frederick accused again.

Atropos raised an eyebrow. "And myself, of course, Frederick. I am not in your jurisdiction. I choose to help, but don't take me for granted. Now, the medallion," she said gently, "Is going to lead us to the Goblin King. That's hardly a bad outcome."

A general twittering raced around the peanut galleries, the sarcasm hard to miss. Even the Council broke into smiles.

Galway, a Knight of the Realm, chuckled and leaned back in his seat. "We could use his skills. No one more likely to find the High King than the Goblin King, no?"

Darnell alone continued to look dry and aloof and very disapproving. "Unless he is dead," he said.

Atropos tightened. "I cast the spell myself."

"And the Mage has never yet been wrong?"

"No." She could actually say that and be truthful.

But Darnell shrugged and said, "Well, we're told that anything is possible in the Labyrinth. That's where he vanished from. Nothing and no one has been able to bring him back."

"My spell was complete. It did its job. It has worked in other circumstances very well."

"And yet you rely on a medallion." Galway shook his head as if dismissing the whole topic. "Spells go wrong. Kings do not last forever. And as you say, your intentions were probably for good. Please keep us informed the next time. That's all."

She shrugged, as if she couldn't be bothered, and somewhere in the peanut gallery a fat old mesange shrieked as her peanuts burst out of the bag. She didn't look up, however, and as she left, the High Council weren't entirely certain whether she'd had anything to do with the ripple of magic that registered in the candle flames.

As she swept to her suite, she revealed nothing except a preoccupied blankness. The kind that said she wouldn't have much patience to be interrupted for no good reason. When the doors closed on her, however, she sagged slightly and banished the mask.

"Send a message to Pieter," she snapped to Emilia, "Tell him I've bought us some time."

Politics, she fumed. She pulled the pins out of her hair and eased a finger under the collar of her dress. To the untrained eye the Mage's dress robes looked fairly comfortable, but to the Mage herself, there was an edge of lace around the collar that itched and rubbed like grit into her soft skin.

Short of tearing her clothes off, however, there was little she could do. But it explained her abruptness. Though that, in itself, had rarely needed a reason to exist.

The meeting had gone largely as planned. She considered she'd played her game well, thrown her dice, and the old men had snapped it up like sugared almonds. The fact that they'd found out anything at all had had her tearing her hair out in frustration. She'd left the most enormous paper trail she could without seeming too obvious. And it had still taken them a truly amazing amount of time to sniff it out.

Their scribes were growing sloppy.

"The message copy, Eminence," Emilia murmured, appearing at her side.

"No copies," she said brusquely, "Burn it. Wait!"

"Yes, Eminence?"

"How much have they paid you?"

Emilia's slitted eyes registered contemplation as she tilted her head in surprise. "Quite a lot, Eminence."

"Who did the bribing? Galway? Or Frederick? And did you give them the information?"

"Oh, yes." Emilia nodded her dark head with grin. "Yes, I told Master Galway that the information was unreliable and that you were deliberately misappropriating funds for the upkeep of your retinue."

"Fair enough. You've adjusted the accounts accordingly, I hope. Even these idiots will check."

"Jason did, Eminence. The accounts were checked yesterday. You've stolen a cache of emergency funds from the Armoury."

"Good girl. Burn the copy."

"Yes, Eminence."

Atropos smiled blackly to herself. There were times that she did steal funds. But the Council would never find those sets of books. She barely knew where they were, herself! It was lucky for her that Emilia was so loyal.

Well, that was all fair enough. Politics, she fumed. When the crisis was over, she hoped never to have to play politics again.

Across the Great Divide, Wystan was hoping the very same thing. He beheld the note in his hand and, had he the wish to risk his neck in a noose, he might have burnt it. But he had no such wish and so he speeded it personally on its way.

"Bloody Gail Kerr," he sighed hollowly.

Gathering himself, he knocked at the tiny door.

The room he entered was characterised for its strangeness. The door was small, while the room was large.

It was a statistical necessity; anyone who entered was usually of a size to enter headfirst. Which was a good thing for the regular inhabitants of the room, who were usually of the sort to cut people's heads off their shoulders for being quite the wrong sort of people.

He held his breathe as he bent down, but there was no resulting 'swoosh'.

When he straightened up, heart slowing from the ominous thudding, he looked around the turret room, absently reiterating that they were just below the lookouts in the East Tower.

Two pairs of eyes looked at him enquiringly, positioned around the table and the map.

Pieces moved upon that map. Lines redrew themselves when necessary.

It was, in short, a map for war. Not peace. It had been created in war, it had been used in war, and here it sat, ready for battle.

Wystan disliked the map intensely. Not because he disapproved of its purpose, but because he disapproved of magic. He could take the violence in the Fort with equanimity since he was never involved. Magic brought too many chances of endangering his safety.

Edur's secretary, Drake, walked to him silently and held out his hand.

Wystan handed the note over. But he saw Edur's eyes on him and summoned his courage.

"Gail Kerr has been spotted Aboveground," he said.

For the moment, the War Room was devoid of Generals, and the words fell like stone in the empty spaces. Drake's expression never changed. He merely completed his task and went back to his pile of documents. Edur smiled.

Wystan was quite certain he didn't like that smile. It was not a pleasant one and it took no trouble to seem so.

"The crows come home to roost," Edur said softly, "Better than magpies, I suppose."

"Are there instructions?"

"Oh, yes. There are always instructions. Tell them to get on with it."

"And Kerr?"

"The sharan looks for King. Kill the King, and all is well."

So, Wystan thought, those were the orders. Kill the King.

He bowed and took his leave. As he shut the door, he heard Edur ask Drake about the girl.

Aboveground, Toby was being raked over the coals by his over-anxious parents. Both of them had him standing quite literally on the mat while they talked to him seriously about the pros and cons of being sensible.

"And who in the world is this John?" Karen ended her speech.

Toby had the urge to giggle. There had been talk, some weeks ago, of prostitutes and what it was like, And Vic had told them quite confidently that clients were sometimes called 'johns'. And there was the toilet humour, no less, if Colin's father was to be believed when he was drunk. Not to mention that 'John' seemed about the most common name in the world.

Yes, he thought half-hysterically, who in the world was John.


	21. Unaligned

Author's Note: Well, the flow is coming along a little better, I believe. I know this is stil dragging but take courage! A bad thing can only get better! Or does Toby find that it gets worse...

--

"I'm not supposed to," Toby hissed, "If my parents found out, they'd kill me."

Greg flapped a dismissive wrist at him and hunched over the phonecall to his cousin. "Yeah," he said coolly, "Sounds great."

Two weeks had gone by before this point. Two slow, uneasy weeks for Toby that were characterised by suspicious parents, peculiar teachers, strange dreams of goblins, an even stranger figure in black and a visit to the councillor.

Dr. Grey had, according to Toby, enjoyed the saga of the junk shop manager a little too much. A mind like a sink and euphemisms for euphemisms- "Did he want anything from you, Toby? Did he do anything to worry you?"

Toby set his teeth but shrugged. "Like what?"

"Did he touch you?" Bluntly voicing what Toby's parents had been too afraid to ask.

"No!" Toby glared at anything in the room except that concerned young face. "It wasn't anything like that."

"I don't judge you, Toby. You can tell me if there was anything that worried you." There was a careful note of clinical empathy in the fluid voice. "Are you sure there's nothing you want to tell me?"

Toby had shaken his head mutinously.

What had he got to tell? John hadn't touched him. John hadn't scared him. John hadn't done anything more than be, surprisingly, fairly responsible about the whole thing. A prospective paedophile was the last thing he seemed to be.

"Your parents are very worried, you know. But how do you feel about it?"

He felt frustrated. He felt stifled. He felt as if the ghost of his lost sister was breathing down his neck.

"I guess I understand why," he muttered, "This whole thing with Sarah was so… stupid. And they want me to be safe."

"Do you remember Sarah?"

What sort of question was that?

"Yeah. Well, bits, I guess."

"What about the blood? Do you still dream about that?"

Dr. Grey had spent a lot of time talking about the blood. Toby had the almost irrepressible urge to say that, no, he hadn't dreamt about the blood but he was dreaming about goblins and what the bloody hell did that signify?

He didn't say it, naturally. But he took some comfort in thinking it.

"Tell me," Dr. Grey said.

But there was nothing to tell. Toby hadn't been let out of the house.

And who was John? Robert had 'gone to have a talk' with the man. Had phoned him from the house on a shockingly private number. Surely John would have explained whatever needed explaining? But nobody had told Toby what the explanations were. And Robert still asked his son- who was John.

Everyone wanted Toby to tell them something. As if he would know, decisively. Nobody told him but they expected him to know. How was it possible? What laws of logic had gone askew? The shouting, the yelling, the searching, scorching, scaring glances that crawled across his skin the minute he was looking at something else had made him self-aware to the point of screaming.

Who was John? Greg asked too. Even Greg, much as Toby depended on Greg.

Who was John? What was John?

A junk shop manager. Blond hair. Loss of memory. Strange eyes. Pointed teeth.

Wolfish.

Wolves were predators, weren't they? But John had certainly not been predatory. He'd been… Toby hesitated over the word. What had he been? What was John? Was it possible John had been… but wouldn't Toby have known?

He'd tried to think objectively of whether there had been some moment of strangeness. But when everything was strange it was hard to separate the fact from the fiction. Like one of Sarah's old stories. What was fantasy when Merlin was running down the street and Greg was there to laugh at him?

Toby was feeling wretchedly out of sync with his own environment.

He had gone into his parents' room- a forbidden act in itself- and snuck the number out of his mother's bedside table drawer. He'd written it on the back of the card from the junk shop and he'd stared at it for ten minutes when he'd been alone at home, sitting by the phone and thinking that he could always put his neck in the noose and call.

Just to say hi, he thought recklessly.

What would John say to that?

"Oh, come on, Toby. You're going mad sitting around here and nobody'll even know," Greg wheedled.

Toby shook his head. "No. I'm in deep shit as it is. I don't need any more trouble."

"Where's your spirit of adventure? Where's your daring? Where's your… fun?"

"I'm fun," Toby growled, stung by the acid accusation, "But I'm not getting my ass kicked from here to Tibet by my Dad when he finds out I'm going around the town with your dopey cousin and his mates."

"Hey, Eric's cool." Greg flopped down on the bed beside Toby and eyed his long face with amused grey eyes. "Guess what I found in school today."

Toby thought distractedly that Greg had the same kind of smile as John. "What?"

"Cigs."

"Huh."

"In the toilet." Greg punched him lightly in the chest. "I fucking hid them," he said daringly.

Toby raised an eyebrow in spite of himself. "Who's are they, Greg? You'll get hammered if it's those guys with the earrings."

"It's not them. But remember Henders and that tall guy with the stupid red cap? They're always hanging around that girl with the massive…"

"I remember," Toby interrupted, shifting uncomfortably. "You're mad. They're mad and they'll kill you."

Greg grinned and shrugged. "It's a joke. It's only cigarettes."

Toby considered that. It wasn't only cigarettes. Cigarettes were status symbols. If they were hidden in the toilets at school, chances were they were more than just 'only'. But still. He grinned. And then chuckled. And then caught Greg's eye and burst out laughing at the thought of the hapless boys tearing the place apart looking for a packet of cigarettes in a toilet.

They lay together on the bed and laughed for what felt like the first time in months. And then they chatted amiably about nothing, tossing a tennis ball up at the ceiling.

"So you're coming, right?"

Greg looked anxious, Toby realised. He softened a little and shrugged, not making a big deal out of the jolt to his ego. "Yeah, sure. Why not. But nothing stupid. I mean, I don't want to call my parents from the police station at midnight because your cousin decided to shoplift or something."

"No, no. Even he's not that dumb. It'll be fun, I swear."

"Fine. I'll come."

Toby felt hot and cold nursing that secret to himself. He couldn't concentrate in class and Gordon caught him daydreaming when he was supposed to read a section out loud. Everyone expected fireworks but Mr. Keiler was surprisingly mild. He said nothing, reminded Toby to pay attention, filled him in and told him to carry on.

Even Toby was surprised. Until Gordon caught him as he was leaving the room and asked him to stay back for a minute.

There was another class coming in, though the students knew by now that Mr. Keiler's classes were not to be interrupted by stampeding hordes at the sound of the bell. Gordon and Toby moved to the corridor and Gordon said nothing until they were on the stairwell and then stopped on the landing, in the corner, and fixed Toby with a steady blue gaze.

"I've noticed a woman following you," he said.

Toby almost fell over. "What?"

"Erudite as always. Williams, do you or your family have friends who follow you after school for no good reason or is there something wrong?"

"I- I don't know what… I don't know what you're talking about," Toby stuttered.

The man in black, yes. He knew about him. He'd almost persuaded himself that he was dreaming. That the hairs on the back of his neck weren't really standing on end. But a woman? What woman? Who was she? What was she? Was it true? And how did Mr. Keiler know?

"I see."

Gordon shifted his books to his other hand and tucked them against a hip. "Well, so long as this woman doesn't interfere with your schoolwork, I suppose it's really none of my business. She stays outside the school most days, as well, so I can't complain. But I would talk to your parents, if I were you."

Toby paled at the thought.

Gordon's expression grew shrewd, as if the words had been said out loud. "But you won't do that, will you. Boys never do tell things, do they. I see."

He waited politely while another teacher and a gaggle of students passed, and then chose to speak again.

"Williams, I have a feeling that I should take this up with the Principal."

"No!" Toby's lungs inflated. "No, it's okay. God, you don't have to tell the Principal!"

"Hm. Explain why." Gordon saw the boy lift a hand to his head, hold it as if it would fall off, saw the tremble in the well-shaped hands. "Purely so that I have some sort of an explanation if anything should happen, you understand."

"Nothing's going to happen."

"I'm sure. While it's happening, would you like to tell me why I should not be a good citizen and report this to the proper authorities?"

"Hey, I don't know anything about that. It's a joke, right? I mean, nobody would follow me. I didn't do anything."

"And you think I'm mistaken?"

Toby didn't reply to that but his opinion was clear enough.

"You may be right." Gordon straightened up his already straight back and gestured imperiously to the stairs. "Alright, then. I shall think about it. In the meantime, go back to class."

Toby hovered hopelessly, trying to find the words to suppress the whole business. At least until he could get his mind around it. The moment felt very surreal.

"Well?" The elegant voice was very impatient.

"Sir, it's not… I mean, you don't have to tell anyone. I didn't do anything. You must have made a mistake…"

"Williams, go back to class."

Definite annoyance. Toby moved almost unconsciously.

"But be careful. Try not to wander around town alone. Take Greg," Gordon suggested ironically, "If you two can stand to stay out of trouble. Or better yet, stay home and finish your homework."

"Yes, Sir."

Gordon nodded. He watched Toby go and then turned and went about his business. In the afternoon, Charlene Lint pushed her glasses up her noses in harried frustration as she relayed the fact that Toby Williams and Greg Symons had gotten into a fight in the toilets during lunch over a childish prank involving a packet of contraband cigarettes.

He wanted to grin but he dutifully looked reproving. And then he wanted to bang his head against the table in frustration because the boy was evidently unable to stay out of trouble at all.

Particularly, he groaned internally, when Greg was at hand.


	22. Shake, Shatter and Smash

Author's Note: Got the next round of chapters lined up. I promise this is going to come together over the next chapter or so. For everyone who is still still it out- thank you. Particularly to the people who are reviewing. I know it's hard, and if I haven't managed to PM you personally to say how much I appreciate your encouragement and kind words, I'd like to say it publically- you made my day. ^_^

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"No," Karen said emphatically, keeping her eyes on the road, "No, no, and once again- no!"

"But Mom, you said…"

"Toby, don't even try that with me," she warned, "I don't want to hear it."

He slumped disgustedly in his seat and folded his arms, feeling as if the top of his head was about to screw off. The air conditioning wasn't working. The car was hot. His shirt was torn and he'd been forced by the Principal and his mother to button his jacket up.

The heat was matched only by his temper.

Toby tended to be like his father where anger was concerned. He got hot under the collar, wanted to yell and scream and throw things, and then cooled down and felt foolish for losing control.

His mother was the opposite. She grew frosty and precise. Unnervingly remote. Dangerous territory.

Toby knew that. He had a hazy recollection of Sarah being home when she was still around- still alive- and shushing him hurriedly when Karen was angry.

"Go to your room, Toby," Sarah had said gently, ruffling his hair so he didn't take the situation too seriously, "This talk is for big people."

And he'd toddled off. How old had he been? Not too young. But not too old. He hadn't understood why his mother was so upset, so changed. But he'd toddled off obediently because Sarah had said so and he had trusted Sarah.

Sarah wasn't here any more and this time he knew damned well what the problem was.

"Don't you dare make that face, young man. You know very well why I'm upset," Karen said as she unlocked the door.

"What?" he protested.

"Look at you! Is this why we send you to school?"

"I didn't start the fight, Mom. Those guys did. You should be mad at them!"

"You didn't…" Words failed her and Karen was forced to stop herself physically banging her head against the nearest wall, if only because she already had the beginnings of a stress headache and didn't want concussion into the bargain.

Instead she controlled herself further, deliberately modulated her voice- "I have to go back to work. I can't talk about this now. You, Tobius, will sit in your room and think about what happened this morning at school. When your father gets home we're going to have a serious conversation about this."

"Dad will understand," Toby muttered.

Karen snorted. "I'm sure he will. He'll understand that you behaved stupidly and made me leave work to bring you home from school because you got into a fight. No! Don't say a word now. You and Greg both are in heaps of trouble and so I warn you."

They were. They both knew they were.

Mrs. Symons, never one to mince words, had already had them on the mat for ten minutes before Karen had got there. She'd chewed them up, all fire and brimstone, blazing away loud enough to make both boys slightly afraid.

Toby didn't know if he'd preferred that reaction to what his mother gave him. She'd simply walked in, listened politely to the Principal, nodded, said she felt terrible about this and understood that the school would have to take certain measures. Then she'd collected him, taken him home, and left him there.

Toby estimated that Mrs. Symons would be laughing about it in a couple of days. He glumly looked forward to Karen seeing it in quite a different manner.

"And if you think that this weekend of yours is still happening, you're wrong," was Robert's last word.

The prisoner was allowed one phone call that evening to tell Greg his side of the story.

Greg was in much worse shape.

"I've got a black eye," he complained.

And Toby had an image of Greg's dark eyes matched by a dark bruise. Like make-up, he thought hysterically, like those pictures Sarah used to have in her room of those pop stars with the crazy eye shadow from the eighties.

Greg in make-up was almost hilarious.

He scuffed his sneaker and prayed that neither of his parents were listening. Cupped his hand around the handset and lowered his voice. "I'm really sorry about that," he said, "I was trying to get out quick but my stupid shirt got caught and…"

"That's ok. I was the one who did the trick, right? It's cool."

"I tried to get back in," Toby confessed, voice getting tighter.

"Are you serious? Why?"

Greg's hearty disdain was a bath of cold water. The weight fell off Toby's shoulders and he straightened up. Blinked. Stopped trying to reach through the phone.

"So, did you get a steak for the eye?" Toby laughed.

"Nope. Frozen peas."

"I can just see it."

"Yeah. I thawed the packet too, so we're eating them for dinner. Mom says it's fitting punishment," Greg laughed, "I hate peas!"

Toby echoed the humour and all was right with the world. He put down the phone, not terribly worried about being grounded. He'd still see Greg. After all, they'd meet at school everyday. And some of the old camaraderie was back!

He begged hard enough that he was allowed to send Colin an email, explaining what the situation was. Colin tended to panic when things happened.

Worse, Toby thought ruefully, than he himself did.

In the shock of the scuffle and the sudden anger, his previous obsession with his conspiracy theory seemed ridiculous. He dismissed his shadows, and his goblin, and the book, and his dreams.

The world, he thought, was brand new. Until he woke up one midnight to find a man at his side.

Every fear came rushing back, every nerve ending felt cold and shrivelled. His legs attempted to curl him into a ball and the rest of him attempted to start away from the apparition.

Which only tilted its head at him and smiled, a small, knowing little smile.

"The famous Toby Williams," it said, "You do not look as I imagined you."

"Who are…?"

"Nobody. Everybody. Perhaps Somebody." The apparition shifted and Toby saw something very strange upon its white chest. A medallion. A red metal- copper? Like his. Upside down.

"Don't dream, Tobius Williams. That land is too dangerous."

There were other things said. Toby couldn't remember them all come the morning because the words didn't make sense. They were strung together like popcorn, disconnected and rotating like atoms.

His head hurt in the morning, and he was angry. Very angry. Very scared but furious.

It was a dream. He knew it was a dream. The face was so familiar though he couldn't remember who it was.

He swung his legs out of bed, got dressed. He'd felt that terror before. For Sarah's blood on the carpet.

It was always bloody Sarah but she was long gone. Why remember her now? Why let her ruin his life because she had managed to ruin her own? Toby determined to forget her. His mother was forcing him to see his shrink about the fight anyway, so he kindly let the man in on his newfound resolution and then went home feeling very virtuous.

Reality. He told himself sternly that he had to keep his mind on reality. No more murderers behind the wallpaper.

The sunlight was strong and hot and he could feel it burn the fear away. There were only so many people in town, Greg had told him, and he was bound to see them around sometimes. Not being followed, then; just the victim of coincidence.

Just stupidity.

Toby fell into a black dejection, wrapping himself into his coat in the car, cold but with his palms sweating. He dropped his chin on his chest to hide the fact that his neck and shoulders ached awfully. He lowered his eyes so they wouldn't find themselves hypnotized by telephone poles in the window.

He mouthed the word to his knees just so he was very clear on the matter- stupidity.

The car pulled up at the door and he got out.

His parents were going out. They trusted him to stay home and be good. His mother kissed him goodnight and told him severely to do his homework. She smiled at him.

Toby waved them off and then, because he could, went out into the fresh air and stood on the porch.

"Stupid," he whispered to himself, huddling into his jacket once again.

And like a conjuring word, the night flung its shadows up and the woman was there. Smiling; gapped teeth. The man in black. Converging on him. A new one, with something glinting in his hand and Toby had one sharp moment to register that it was a knife before he took off.

He didn't stop until he was on a bus. And didn't stop until he was at the diner, standing in the warmth and frantically trying to call Greg or his parents.

No answer.

Why no answer? Everyone around him except the ones he wanted and even they were always around until he needed them to be, and then they were always gone. Like Sarah. Just vanished overnight! Why was no one answering?

He hung up the phone in despair and turned around. And came face to face with a sardonically enquiring face.

"Williams," Gordon said lightly, "It seems a little late to be out on a school night."

Toby could have babbled with relief. As it was, he gulped like a goldfish and nodded.

Gordon's eyes narrowed and he grew serious. Gestured Toby towards a booth. "You'd better sit down. Do you feel ill?"

"No."

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine." Toby's tongue was working again, though he was surprised to hear how strange his voice sounds. Grating. As if he hadn't spoken in years. "I'm okay. I'm just…"

How to cover terror without explaining it?

"I'm sort of stuck and my parents are out for the night," he said, "I was trying to call Greg but he's not answering either."

"I see."

Gordon took in the dilated pupils, the way the boy had chewed on his lower lip until it was red and wet. Swollen. Strained voice and the slight glaze of sweat on his brow.

There were lots of situations that could produce that effect. But few that were accompanied by such a look of unhappiness. Few that would send a young boy running into a public area to call his parents or best friend from a diner.

He had also, though he was not about to tell Toby this, seen the woman across the street. He had looked at her, seen her smile and then watched her vanish. Gail Kerr had vanished after her. Neither of them had used the human way.

He reached to touch Toby's shoulder and two things happened. He received a light surge across his palm that shot silver sparks into his vision. And Toby's eyes went wide before the boy moved impulsively away.

"Don't."

It was a very sharp, very scared plea.

Gordon dropped his hand immediately. He directed the full weight of his authority at Toby and murmured, "I will ask you once more- what is wrong?"

Toby gave him the same story. Elaborated. A check-up on his eyes, he lied, and he'd been allowed to go alone because his parents had to go out for dinner. But he'd missed his bus and now he was stuck. His dad's cell was switched off and even Greg wasn't answering. His parents were going to kill him for being such an idiot.

"For being so stupid," he said, and felt his heart gripped in a tight hand.

Stupid. What was happening to him? How could he believe in it? How was it possible?

Gordon watched the attempt to make the performance convincing, the way that Toby's mind was preoccupied on another level entirely. The way he kept rubbing his arms as if he were cold.

The boy was radiating magic. Was it true what Gail Kerr said? It seemed the only explanation that fitted. Which meant that the boy was a walking beacon! No wonder they were clustered around him, attracted like flies to rotting garbage.

Except one. Where was he? The true sensitivity would have him be the first to notice. The medallion would demand it. Why was he not here?

"Come, then." Gordon stood up and gestured to the door. "I had better drive you home."

Toby was startled. And embarrassed. And tried to refuse. But Gordon wouldn't take no for an answer.

"I don't want to go back," Toby said desperately.

And Gordon sat down to hear the whole story. At the end of it he mentally cursed Kerr for being so heavy-handed about the affair. 'Run', indeed! No doubt wonderfully effective but absolutely devastating to the young mind that had absorbed it.

"I see," he said, "Have you told your parents?"

"They won't believe me. No one will believe me. I'm just being stupid." Toby fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve and wouldn't look up.

Gordon was honest, he told himself, Gordon would tell him what he truly thought. He didn't coddle anyone; didn't believe their nonsense. He'd say that it was all his imagination. He'd said so before and he was bound to say it again. There would be more therapy. His parents would be worried. The cops would know better than to believe that anyone wanted to chase a fourteen-year-old boy around a middle-of-nowhere town for no good reason.

Maybe they'd think he did something bad? What would be bad enough to have this happen?

"I would believe you," Gordon said.

And Toby wanted to cry but didn't.


	23. Sticking Point

Author's Note: Short chapter, but I'm finally bringing it to sticking point. Consider this chapter the line drawn in the sand.

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Gordon took him home. The laws of the land Aboveground required him to do so. His hands were tied.

He was, however, very annoyed with Gail. And worried about the mention of a knife.

The woman he knew. He had already picked her, as she had picked him, and they were currently engaged in a chess game of move and counter move. She had the advantage of being invisible, capable of devoting all her time to her task. Gordon cursed the papers he had to correct but counted one very important point in his favour- Toby knew him. And therefore would cooperate.

"I advise you to stay in your house for the next week," Gordon said, "And I think I should talk to your parents."

"No!"

"I am required by law to do so."

"They'll kill me for being out of the house when I'm grounded," Toby replied.

Gordon blinked, wondering if the boy was growing unhinged. Of all the ridiculous reasons to fear his parents!

"That is as may be," he continued, "But this is far more important."

And there he closed the matter.

As luck would have it, neither parent was home when he dropped Toby off, and Toby was so evidently unfocused that he decided not to press the matter. When Toby went inside, he drove away. Parked his car on a side street. And got out and walked back to the house. If anyone saw him, he assumed there would be some talk of a certain young widow who was said to be determined to enjoy the death of her husband.

Gail Kerr, he estimated, would not be available for babysitting duties for a few hours yet. The woman looked like she had fight in her.

He idly stepped into the shadows and quite without warning melted.

He could see the light in Toby's room. Caught a brief glimpse of body as it moved across the curtains.

There were a few names he could put to the face. She was not pretty at first sight, and entirely forgettable, but there was a determination in her movements, a considered note to her plotting. She was trained, that much was highly obvious. And if Gail Kerr had seen fit to warn Toby to run- however much Gordon deplored the results of that incident- then it was obvious that she was a threat.

And what was more, she knew it.

He tried to think of who it could be. There were a few underground rebel groups within the kingdom. The White Doves came to mind. Silly people who wanted peace at the price of war and claimed they did it for the greater good. The Leonares had always been annoying but they worked through diplomatic channels, jamming the administration, not slaughtering fourteen-year-old earth boys.

There was always the main rival. Edur couldn't be discounted.

And where, he asked himself, was Jareth?

The pieces were all in place. The game was set. The opponents ready. And the lives at stake seemed small but Gail, possibly the only sharan who cared about politics enough to keep abreast of them, Gail had warned him to take care.


	24. Enigma

Author's Note: I had a bit of trouble through this chapter keeping the names straight in my head, so here's a name recap for you:

Gail Kerr- sharan/ man in black/ follows Toby.

Gordon Keilor- Toby's English teacher

John- the junk store owner.

The lady- the one with the gap in her teeth/ follows Toby around.

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Edur made plans in his Fortress. Atropos schemed in the City.

Aboveground, Gordon rubbed the kinks out of his shoulders and cursed the brick wall at his back. It was all very well playing knight in shining armour but to do it for six hours straight in stillness was simply painful.

He cursed the sun for rising. He cursed the wall for being hard. He cursed the obnoxious old woman who had made it a point to sit on her porch at ungodly hours of the morning. And while he was at it, he cursed Gail Kerr for getting him into this mess at all.

"Who'd be a sodding teacher," he grunted, and took himself off to find his car.

The rusty human contraption- and oh, how he hated it!- stood silent at the end of the street. He got in and drove it home to a hot shower and a change of clothes.

When he got there, Gail was waiting.

"Who?" Gordon asked simply.

"Lucia Darns," Gail replied.

"Oh?" An eyebrow rose in unwilling surprise. "I've heard the name. She assassinated the Hassamens. An impressive woman."

"She had a reputation," Gail agreed. He winced as he touched his side. "I need some touching up, brother. I haven't had the time to get back home."

Home.

The word hung there as Gordon softened and nodded. Went to find the basic necessities with which to put it all to rights. The needle, a candle, and a bottle of whiskey.

"Cold?" he asked.

"Not enough blood lost." Gail exposed his side, bit down on a corner of the towel and stoically let the sterilized needle do its work. When his brother was done, he gulped at the whiskey and let the fire take some of the sting away.

"You should have gone to the hospital."

"Dressed like this? They would have called the police! And I do not want to end up in an earth prison."

"Can't be worse than the City dungeons."

"Can't be worse than a war prisoners' pen," Gail said acerbically, "Stop making me feel better. I agreed I would remain secret and, heaven help Amam, I'm trying. I don't have the time to be everywhere at once."

Gordon pretended shock. "My God! You're not superhuman!"

Gail swatted at him and then winced as his recently stitched side protested. He dropped a hand back to the bottle and knocked back another slug. "I'll stay here for the morning. I need sleep. Are you going to work?"

"For today, yes, to keep an eye on Toby. He's in a bad way. Between all of you, he doesn't know if he's coming or going."

"I was told to keep him out of it."

"Atropos?"

"Who else?"

"He has the medallion, you know. In his pocket. I almost electrocuted myself on his shoulder."

Gail groaned and dropped his head into his hands. "The stupid, ignorant little twit," he said.

Gordon laughed. "He doesn't know any better, Gail. And so far he's stayed away from the other side. My only fear is that everyone but Jareth seems to be after the medallion. It's attracting every sensitive in the near vicinity to get the Goblin King but he isn't biting."

Gail didn't lift his head. "Spells were never my forte. Speak to Atropos."

"Question her spells? Thank you. You must want me dead."

"No, I want you silent. I am attempting something I haven't done in days- sleep. And you are interrupting."

Gordon grinned. "Get to bed, then. It's your turn to guard tonight."

"Go away."

Gordon obligingly went away. Gail stayed at the table, head in hands, for two hours. When he straightened up, he felt better. His head was clear, at least, and he made an oath to himself to take a long, deep rest when the crisis was done.

He wouldn't tell Gordon, but it was certainly a crisis.

He wouldn't tell Gordon that Atropos knew the spell wasn't working.

He wouldn't tell Gordon that the Goblin King, quite simply, didn't want to be found.

He got up and stretched, went to the bedroom where the clothes were hastily bundled into a pile and left in a corner. Rough tidiness, suitable for men with little time and no effort to spare for dainty behaviour.

Gordon still had the habits of an aide de camp, which amused his brother no end. The last war had been over thirty years ago and yet the behaviour still remained. Given that he'd pulled Gail out of a teaching appointment to two noble brats, Gail had assumed that the rough and ready methods would have been much improved.

He opened the cupboards and removed a clean shirt and underclothes. It was a standing joke that when the sharan turned up on your doorstep, food and shelter was the least of their requirements. Gail ignored those jokes. The sharan had their own jokes. To them, if one of their own didn't have to burn their clothes when they finished an assignment, they had obviously not worked hard enough.

He showered, being careful of the new stitches, and dressed himself. Shaved with his brother's apparatus, and let himself out quietly into the morning sun.

The blue shirt was incongruous in his usually monochromic dress code, but he had a different purpose that morning.

He went to the junk shop, and pushed the door especially hard so that the bell jingled.

John melted out of the shadows, already tensed in recognition of his customer's face.

Gail had quite a different reaction. The pull to kneel was almost as strong as the disgust for the human vessel. To have been… and to be that.

"I know your name," he said pleasantly, "I know where you live. I have information for you." He expected some kind of curiosity, some show of fear.

Instead, John looked contemplative. "What colour is it?" he asked.

Gail laughed, caught off guard. And then he shook his dark head. "Enigmatically shaded," he said.

"There's no trade in enigmas," John returned quietly. Glanced pointedly at the door.

"Why not?"

"People buy what they trust. Lucky dips only work because there are, as such, no scorpions in the bottom."

"Fair enough. Then I'll give you the information for free. Have you ever read…" Gordon reached into his jacket pocket, "This?"

For the first time since he had walked through the door, he saw John's expression falter. Saw genuine confusion and concern on the sharp-featured face.

"The book," John said, and imperiously held out a hand for it. Received it with barely a nod of acknowledgement and opened it. Gently, gently shifted the pages, now so elegantly restored.

"Not the same," Gail said, "But another copy. I suggest you read it."

"Did I write it?" John asked seriously, "I don't remember this. Well, apart from the boy."

"You like the boy."

The brief smile again. "He's an enigma."

Gail didn't take the bait. The boy was a subject for another time. He left, not suddenly and not swiftly, but silently. He wouldn't take his leave because the sharan never took their leave of their lord.

And John slowly turned the pages until he reached a particularly interesting scene.

"My kingdom as great," he murmured, and wondered why those words were familiar.


	25. Pieces

Author's Note: Warning for SLASH, though not of the variety or depth this story will eventually gain.

Author's Note 2: Ok, I've been warned that this is a bit confusing (and doesn't live up to expectation, sadly) so I've made some small changes in my choice of words in this chapter. I'll try and come back in a couple of hours to do a proper overhaul but until then, please bear with me.

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"For my will is as strong," John muttered, "And my bloody kingdom is as great."

It had all begun with the boy and the book. He had agreed to perform one favour, mostly because Toby had been interesting in an otherwise monochromatic life. Those blue eyes, somehow so familiar, looking at him… in such strange ways. Asking questions? Or answering them? Familiar and not.

And now strange men were walking in off the streets and offering him information. Enigmatically coloured information, no less.

He snorted in derision and cupped his face in his palm, turning things over swiftly in his head.

He'd sent Sam to get the boy's book back.

The only person he could trust, was Sam. The only one who didn't seem capable of subterfuge.

He tried to recall the man in black. Toby's man in black. They had been standing there and John had felt something. A frisson. It had whispered down his spine and somehow he had known that this man knew him.

For the life of him he couldn't think how unless it was from the past- the past was so very problematic. Not that the future was looking any better, he had to admit.

He tapped a pencil restlessly against his knee and then gave up the wait. There was work to be done. And the store had to stay open. He couldn't open and close like a snapdragon. He was only the manager, and there were few customers as it was.

Junk sold to those who valued junk. And there were few left in the world who wanted other people's junk.

Instinctively his hand went to the book and traced the spine possessively.

Across town, Toby tried to grasp the rudiments of a mathematical tangle. He gave up halfway through, and the teacher didn't seem to care all that much either. He spent the next five minutes idly watching Jake stick his tongue out and scratch his head. Greg was sitting behind him, and if Toby concentrated, he imagined he could hear his best friend breathe.

Quiet and slow. In and out. The slow pump of a healthy, young heart, thud-thudding just beneath it.

He opened his eyes when someone let out a hacking cough but it was a false alarm. No one was looking up yet and no one was really done. Mr. Wexler was doing something else at his desk and for once, no one seemed in any mood to talk much.

The balled-up scrap of paper that suddenly rolled to his feet was abrupt, and he had to smother a grin because this was such an old habit.

He nonchalantly picked up the piece of paper and smoothed it out across the page of his book.

He read it, lips twitching, and glanced up repeatedly to make sure that Mr. Wexler was not going to burst his bubble. That satisfied, he added a few more words, and slipped it down to the ground. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if his aim had gotten worse since the last time they'd tried this. But then consigned his soul to Pan and let his foot flick.

After waiting a moment or two, he looked back over his shoulder. Greg grinned and nodded. And Toby's world was a brighter place with a partner in crime.

It went back and forth a few more times before the class got busy again. And Toby was sitting up straighter, head cleared, as Greg put himself out to be a smart ass.

There was something about Greg that craved attention and Toby had always been supportive of that. There were non-too subtle whispers and comments going on behind him, along with Greg's more openly expressed innocent queries as to the whys and wherefores of mathematics.

By the time the bell went, the world was looking abnormally normal again.

"Hey, look! You can smile again," Greg noted, stuffing his books into a moderately controlled pile under his arm.

"Shut up."

"Make me."

Toby eyed him. "I've pinned you before," he warned.

"Fuck that," Greg said grandly, "We were playing. You want to wrestle, you'd better be ready to get your ass kicked."

"Ha! The only thing you can kick is a barn."

"Your butt's about that size, anyway."

Toby shouldered him and they tussled good-naturedly in the hallway. Victor passed by and broke them apart. Then proceeded to rumple Greg up and mock-threaten him.

Toby stood idly by and watched, thinking that Greg was going to come out of it looking like he'd been dragged backwards through a bush. Not that Greg ever cared, he remembered, Greg was a very physical sort of person. Very hands-on.

They made it through to lunch without any of the teachers getting too tired of them. Colin managed to get a detention but apart from that shock, things were quiet. Things were pleasant. Things were, in fact, normal.

Which was why Toby found himself in the toilets at school, hand pressed to his forehead and a train running through his head as he rocked his insanity closely to his chest.

It was too normal. And nothing was the same.

"Hey, come on," Greg sighed, "Toby! Man, this is not cool. Come on! We've got class!"

"Fuck off."

"Are you sick? Puking or something? I can get the nurse if you're sick."

Toby could imagine the expression on Greg's face, the half-embarrassed and half-angry look, a slight line of strain between his dark brows as he tried to hear what his eyes couldn't see. And he didn't want to see it.

"I'm not sick," Toby growled, "Go to class. I'm fine."

"So why're you stuck in the toilet? You're getting periods now?"

"Shut up."

Silence.

Toby had heard the viciousness in his own voice. The very serious note of warning. He didn't think he'd ever go barrelling out of a toilet cubicle and hit his best friend for being a pissy idiot but lately… lately things had been tricky. He wanted to apologize almost as soon as he said it.

And then quietly, softly- "Toby, is it one of your headaches?"

Toby squeezed his eyes shut. "Yeah." Convenient lie. Always had been. He'd never had a migraine but an occasional dull ache behind his eyes had bought him a lot of space when Sarah was first gone. He'd used it on Greg too, because they'd been so close.

Toby had thought at the time that nothing could be more frustrating than Greg's concern. He'd been thinking lately that unconcern was just as bad.

"Want me to get an aspirin or water or something?"

"Nope, I'm fine."

Fine. He felt it was appropriate to sit in the toilet. His life was gurgling down the drain in any case.

"Maybe I should call your mom."

"No! Are you mad?"

"Okay, okay."

There was a sudden thump and Toby didn't need to think to know that Greg had just collapsed against the door of his cubicle, back to the plastic and hand automatically raking through his dark hair. Dark curls that looked like he'd been dragged backwards through a bush.

Toby undid the catch and Greg came in. Thoroughly unashamed. And looked at him.

"You don't look good."

"Thanks, Doctor Symons."

Greg pretended to preen. "That's me. Hottest doctor in Hollywood. Surgeon to the Stars." Dropped his arm and sobered up in ways Toby rarely got to see. "But really, you look like shit. Your eyes are all smudgy."

"Yeah?" Toby put up his fingers and touched the sore skin under his left eye. "Oh."

"Dreams, right?"

"Usual. That time of the year, remember?"

"It's never this bad. You're getting paranoid. Phone calls about being followed and stuff. You should tell your shrink. And what's this about some shopkeeper called John?"

"John?"

Greg's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. Your mom called my mom. My mom asked me all sorts of questions about who we talk to and where we go. Is this…" he faltered a little and then, because it was Greg, let aggression take over, "He's not some sort of perv, is he? You're not sucking his dick, are you?"

Toby could have fallen off the seat and as it was he stared and gaped. "I'm not!"

"I told my mom but I could see she wanted to ask. They can't say it but they always want to ask. It's like that time when…"

And then Greg uncharacteristically fell silent and bit his lip.

"When?" Toby prompted.

Greg shrugged. "You're looking better now. Think we should go to class?"

Toby looked at his watch. "Can't go now. We're too late."

"So we should stay here, then."

"They never check here."

"Don't say that." Greg immediately rapped on his head. "Knock on wood! When you say things like that, it always happens. You're tempting fate."

Toby shoved his hand away.

But unexpectedly Greg grabbed it and pulled. Or came down. Or something.

Toby's eyes were open. He saw it coming and saw it happen, but he couldn't comprehend exactly what 'it' was until 'it' was over and Greg was stumbling backwards and mumbling apologies.

"Oh, shit," figured somewhere in there.

And stupidly Toby wondered if he should tell Greg that he'd quite liked the kiss. But Greg was gone and the door swung to. So Toby matter-of-factly shut the stall door and stayed where he was. He put his right hand carefully on his knee, adjusted for maximum comfort, and then he leaned his face into his hands so that his thumb and forefingers were pressed up against his closed eyes.

And he spent ten minutes alternately pressing hard enough to throw off sparks behind his eyelids and alternately rubbing out the tiredness.

In the afternoon, Gordon caught up with him and insisted on giving him a ride home after school.

"I understand the embarrassment of being seen with a teacher," Gordon said acerbically, "Perhaps you can find an appropriate disguise until we're out of sight."

Toby didn't bother with disguises. He waited dutifully by the car because he simply didn't have the energy to deal with the known or unknown, Greg or the woman. He was not to know the woman was captured. He was not to know that Gail was waiting at a safe but reliable distance to make sure he reached his home without further mishap. But he did know that Greg had left without a word and that Colin was on detention.

Gordon took him home but got nothing more out of him. He made an excuse not to talk to the parents, but Toby wasn't listening.

Gordon was quite happy not to lie. And lo and behold, the boy left his jacket behind.

He held his breathe as Toby walked away. Crossed his fingers as the boy reached the front door. Felt his chest tighten until the door shut. And then Gordon swiftly touched the jacket and felt the pull. So strong it warped his vision.

He pulled away immediately and didn't bother to wait for Gail.


	26. Sleep in Peace

Author's Note: So I was reminded by a very sweet reviewer about the style of the early chapters and I think I know where the last chapter went wrong: I'm simply not being clear enough. The sentences are too melodramatic. The whole thing feels too rushed and not worked on properly. I apologize for that. And I'm attempting to bring the next few chapters up to that level.

Author's Note 2: The italicized comments refer back to earlier chapters.

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"How was school?" Karen asked, crossing her ankles under the table.

"Fine," Toby answered.

He saw his parents exchange that look but he was too preoccupied to pay it much mind. He continued to eat absent-mindedly, chewing slowly over each mouthful because time seemed to stretch on for eternity, and he wouldn't be excused until they were done.

When they were done, he did the dishes. He always did the dishes. And made sure his clothes were in the hamper.

Karen had once talked about putting him on laundry duty but Robert had vetoed it.

"He's got enough homework to keep him occupied," Robert said, directing a meaningful eye at his son, "And I don't want him using everything else as an excuse to skip it."

Karen had bowed to the superior wisdom of her man, and then got Toby to do the laundry every couple of days so they didn't run out of clean underwear.

Toby didn't mind. There was something restful about laundry. Whites here; colours there; detergents and fabric softeners on the shelf. He listened to the rattle and hum of the machines and put little plastic soldiers on the top just to watch them skid about.

But that night was not a laundry night. He finished the dishes and put them away. Kissed his mother impulsively as he went upstairs and then barricaded himself in his room.

He took out the dirty magazine that had lain neglected for a week and willingly directed all the pent-up energy and frustration into more familiar channels. Pointed tongues licking glossy lips. Hands wandering into secret places. Breasts and thighs. Nipples. Lacy bits of things that he preferred not to pronounce if he ever had to say them.

Warm flushes of blood that made his eyelids heavy and the bright flashes of colour when they finally squeezed shut.

He hadn't got anything on the magazine, thank God. He didn't want Greg to get mad at him for that too.

He put it away and made sure it was secure before settling in to a half-hearted attempt at homework. After a few seconds, he got up with a grimace and went to wash his hands. And tossed out the tissues while he was at it.

The moon was high by the time he got into bed and the air was beginning to feel cool. Thanksgiving was around the corner, and Halloween, and Christmas and snow. His mother would cook turkeys and buy presents and the family would do traditional things like visit each other and wear hideous sweaters and watch particular movies.

His grandmother had a tradition that she insisted they follow every New Year's Eve. At midnight, everyone would go out the kitchen door and around to the front. They'd line up there, and ceremoniously pause at the doorstep while they tossed a pinch of salt over their left shoulder before they entered.

His grandmother said it brought good luck.

Toby wasn't sure he believed it. He'd done it last New Year's Eve and the year so far was turning out worse than he'd like. But the thought of it, the ritual, made him yearn to go out immediately and perform it himself.

He might even have done that if he wasn't so afraid of what was waiting outside his door.

The knife. He shivered at the thought but put it down to a flash of imagination. Too many stories about murderers hiding behind trees. It was only natural to fix upon something suitably horrifying in a flash of inexpressible fear.

Probably, Toby thought, that was what Gordon was worried about. No doubt someone had told him all about Sarah and her mysterious disappearance. No doubt he was only being a concerned teacher. The others had all made similar concessions two years ago, humouring him in the interests of his sanity.

He was mostly ambivalent about it all.

That night, Toby lay in bed and thought of Greg. Thought of what had happened and tried to make sense of it in the worryingly frail contours of reality.

Goblins and kidnappings. Men in black. A mysterious store. A mysterious medallion. A book.

Always the book: the Goblin King. And a girl. But the girl was missing and all that she had left behind was a patch of blood-soaked carpet in the spare room. Even that had been taken up and discarded. What else? A man who sold junk? A man who followed him? A medallion that meant nothing except that it bore a prophecy?

Sarah had told someone would come back for the medallion. It didn't sound so fantastical any more.

Toby was aware that he had left his jacket in Gordon's car. The medallion had been in the pocket. Part of him hoped it would be lost before Gordon returned it.

He blushed as he turned over, trying to imagine how Gordon would return a jacket without causing too much comment. Gordon's concern was okay, but were teachers really allowed to give students lifts home in their personal cars after school? More importantly, there things that students said about young boys who spent too much time with young, enigmatic, unmarried men.

'_You're not sucking his dick, are you?'_

Toby could honestly say that he'd never thought about it in the least. Not for Gordon Keilor, and certainly not for John. He'd wondered, sure, on that day when John had ordered him into the back room and tried to be of some help. He'd worried about how to react. It had simply turned out that there had been nothing to react to; John had been quite kind.

And, given the way things had gone since then, it turned out that being asked for such favours was a lesser concern than being slowly dismembered by a stranger in an alleyway. Toby came to the confused decision that if he ever had to choose, he'd prefer to suck dick.

Not that he liked the thought or anything. He'd said so to Sarah, when they'd talked last. There had been Alice Kendle and there'd been just no way.

_'Tobes, experimenting isn't all bad…'_

He stared at the wall and scratched his nose. Itched to touch his mouth. But didn't. Instead he scratched his nose and thought about Greg.

He wondered if Greg thought experimentation was okay too. Clearly he did, since he'd kissed him, but these days Toby didn't take too many assumptions for granted.

He tried to dissect the experience, his mind distressingly clear in the dark.

The kiss itself had caught him so off-guard that he'd had no time to register. It had been a hard kiss. Dry. Warm. But heroines of romance novels always talked about kisses tasting like wet rain or something and all that kept recurring in Toby's mind was that Greg had definitely not tasted of wet rain.

He hadn't tasted of anything!

It had been all lips. Hard pressure. No tongues and no spit and definitely no moan or groan or sigh.

Toby remembered going a bit cross-eyed, lashes fluttering in shock, and he'd been astonished to realize that as much as it worried him, it didn't shock him. The world had turned so irrational that a kiss from his best friend- his supposedly straight best friend- barely registered on the Richter scale of his life.

A little voice in his head pointed out that it had been given in a moment of kindness, which Toby appreciated in context of everything else.

And it had been Greg's to give. Toby had neither asked, nor suggested, nor expected anything of the sort and much as he was certain he didn't really want to go down that path, Greg had meant everything to him over the past two years. He didn't want to lose that. And he couldn't say that there hadn't been times when he'd wondered- just briefly- about an arm slung around his shoulders. Or rolling around in a rough and tumble on the floor or a bed. Greg's habit of grinning at him, looking him straight in the eye.

Toby squeezed his eyes shut on that thought.

That little voice asked him what he'd do if Greg wanted to kiss him again.

It hadn't hurt. It hadn't been threatening.

Toby didn't think he wanted to do it but if Greg were to ask, well, he'd probably give it a try just out of resignation. One quick kiss, just to see what it properly felt like, and then say definitely that he didn't like it. He didn't anyway. He'd just wanked off to a picture of a naked girl.

He liked girls. Alice Kendle- case in point.

"Not like I grab Jake's ass in the locker room."

His eyes popped open of their own accord and he covered his mouth quickly as his voice echoed in his ears.

"Oh shit," he mumbled, and glanced quickly at the door.

Had anyone heard that? His parents? If they had, they'd start to think that he lay in bed contemplating Jake's ass. And then there's be serious conversations and more sessions with his doctor. His mother would go to his school councillor and get those bloody pamphlets!

He quaked under his blanket but calmed down in the next second. His room was too far for his parents to have heard. He hadn't been very loud. Chances were they wouldn't even consider such a thing. And he was certainly not going to tell them!

He snuggled back under the blanket and covered his head. Prayed momentarily to any God listened that nothing would disturb him that night.

Things should have gone smoothly.

The good guys had the medallion. The bad guys were depleted by an important number of one. And Toby was safe in the bosom of his family.

How rare that things worked that way.


	27. The Goblin King

Gordon had taken the medallion to the junk shop with a very specific desire in mind. But entire process had been underwhelming.

He had parked the car, gone inside, made sure they were alone and then handed over the jacket. That had been enough for the medallion to run its course.

John's eyes had widened. He'd compulsively thrust his hand into the pocket and…

Changed.

There was no other word for it. He merely changed. Sharpened.

Gordon had felt the awe that Gail had felt so vaguely for that human version. Which wasn't surprising. It was, after all, the Goblin King. And he'd saluted accordingly and offered his respect.

Jareth- no more 'John'- had drawn a deep breath and stared at him with some strange look on his face. Almost a sort of impersonal dislike. Or disgust.

And Gordon had been surprised until the look had changed to indifference and slow mockery.

"And who," Jareth asked gently, "Am I to thank for this?" He didn't drop the jacket.

"Captain Gordon Keilor, Sire."

Jareth nodded once. "Which outfit?"

"The Lethusian Guards."

"Hill troops. Hand weaponry. Scarlet and white uniform." A twist of those lips. "Hardly enigmatically coloured."

Gordon had known better than to answer that. He merely bowed again in acknowledgement and said, "No, Sire."

Jareth had taken a deep breath, suddenly aware of where he was. The scarred and broken old table crouched in its corner like a wounded animal. Shapes and shadows blending into fantastic new beings.

He had turned his back; let both hands measure what they held. In the one, the medallion. The Goblin Kingdom. The Labyrinth. Power. Prestige. In the other, a jacket.

Inexorably he felt his fingers clench upon the jacket. But almost reflexively he let it fall. It had landed in a heap on the floor and he had merely stepped over it. Taken the medallion in both hands, and put it on. And then turned to present an affable visage to the soldier still awaiting his instructions.

"Gail Kerr," he had said, recalling the face that had seemed so familiar, "Where is he?"

"I'm not entirely sure, Sire. But I can take you to where he is."

"You go your way, Gordon Keilor. I'll go mine."

And Jareth had gathered himself, felt the icy metal against his skin as it infiltrated into his bloodstream. Half-formed thoughts and memories slid and slopped in the recesses of his brain.

John… Jareth… he had gathered himself and mentally jumped.

Lines of colour and scent threaded across existence and he could have followed any one of a million but he chose what he wanted and let it lead him onwards. He had landed in a kitchen but the landing was rusty, off-balance.

He had cursed, one hand reaching for the countertop to steady himself and the other going to his head to stop it spinning. His body wasn't as used to the magic. But anything, anything, to leave that humanity behind.

Gail had appeared silently- almost too easily- in the doorway.

Jareth had been conscious of a certain tension in Gail's shoulders, of the unexpected wariness in those eyes. He had straightened, for all the world as if he were himself again, and said, "You I remember."

And there had been an embrace. As was rightful between two old friends.

"The Underground has been looking for you for years, Jareth."

"I can imagine. Is the Labyrinth falling apart?"

"The Labyrinth is fine. It's the kingdom that's fallen apart. It's anarchy there. Hanson tried but he couldn't control the goblins. I'm afraid you'll have to do that yourself."

Jareth had nodded. The power was still struggling into all the niches and corners of his being, though he paid it little outward attention.

"What happened?" Gail had asked.

Jareth had told him the brief story: the book, Sarah, the baby, the challenge, the defeat and the spell. The spell had kept him alive while the magic recoiled on him. Atropos had done her job well.

"How long have I been human?"

"Fourteen years."

"I see."

"Things have happened in those fourteen years."

"They usually do. Very well. Tell me all."

Boots up on the table, Jareth had thought he was prepared for anything.

But Gail had told him what Gordon had found out: Sarah, the kidnapping, the blood, Toby, the goblins, Edur's men, the woman, the fear, the confusion, the unrest and the Council. "Pieter is running interference on Atropos' orders but there is a limit to how long she can keep this up. They need the High King…"

"And he is not there."

"No. No, he's not."

Gail had waited with outward patience while the Goblin King examined the ceiling.

"And Toby has no idea of any of this?"

"No."

"No wonder," Jareth had commented cryptically. "I suppose it was for the best that Gordon brought me the medallion."

"Did he? Toby had the medallion until very recently."

"Attracting every sensitive in the area, no doubt. The Williams all seem to be rather foolhardy." A brief pause. "There were no clues for the girl's whereabouts?"

"The police," Gail had let the disdain show, "Didn't find anything."

"They usually don't. From your tone, I infer the Council is involved."

"Edur," Gail had replied.

"He was passive when I left."

"In the absence of a High King…"

"Yes, I had forgotten. The assassin has been killed. But clearly Edur would not leave the task to any one person. He must have more Aboveground. The neighbour, you said, was another?"

"Almost certainly. Toby has mentioned he normally wears glasses."

"And now he doesn't?"

"No."

"Interesting. I think I should pay this man a visit."

"Jareth, your first priority is to go Under."

"My first priority, my dear, is to clean up this bloody mess the lot of you have made."

Jareth had done exactly that.

It had been a way to stifle the barrage of images in his head, to quiet the in-flooding voices that threatened to steal his concentration. He had put off his time to adjust to another day, and got on with the task at hand.

Sheridan Tama had been easy to subdue.

Jareth had sent him crashed into walls, ceilings, furniture, had broken his bones and wounded his flesh and mocked him all the while he was doing it until the man finally lay still and laboured to breathe.

Then he had stood over him, and sent him back. Jareth had never liked to kill. And he had a wish to send Edur a message.

The Doer. The Second King. Edur would know how to read the blood and humiliation for what it was- Jareth's arrogant warning of his return.

Then he had sat in a chair at the table and waited, Tama's knife in hand, watching the door with precise intent. The minute the handle shifted, he had had once moment to smile in unpleasant satisfaction.

And the fight had begun all over again.

It hadn't been a fair fight. Jareth's power was his strength and weaponry was no match unless the Goblin King was off guard. What was more, his opponent was a mere soldier. Possibly a good one, to be fair, but a soldier nevertheless. And mere soldiers were not trained, like the Sharan, to withstand magical prowess.

Jareth quite simply ruined him. And this time he took no concern to be careful. A soldier was made to fight and die, and he duly let him fight until the man died of a broken neck.

Jareth searched the house, sorting through it quickly to find the human it had belonged to.

He found the old man in the freezer, cold and dead, with a slit throat and congealed blood on the packets of frozen meat.

The adrenaline was too much. The sudden change was too much. In the heavy silence of the night, Jareth left in full view. Dressed as he was in cape and boots, frills and leather, he stalked out to the front garden to challenge the moon. Bits and pieces were coming back to him. Images. Human and Underground alike. Mixed up in some cases though he could tell they were in the wrong order.

Like a jigsaw puzzle that refused to let him see the bigger picture until he had properly collated the data.

He glared at it, cursed Gail and Gordon for not realizing what he suspected Atropos had always known- he hadn't wanted to go back.

Sarah was gone- where? He didn't know. No one knew. Everyone suspected but who knew? The book was with him. The medallion had made its way back. His world was in chaos and his kingdom was disintegrating. Plans and schemes. Fizzing and foaming, cresting and surging.

Jareth began to walk down the street, purposeless until he reached the porch and then he knew that he'd had a plan at the back of his mind all the time. It wasn't a good plan. Nor was it a necessary one. It would accomplish nothing.

But he was curious, and he felt it only fair to investigate what few pieces of the puzzle Toby might be able to provide him.

He walked around the house, unconcerned by who might see him. He smiled in the sudden memory of the old tree that should have been outside the upstair's window. Sarah's room, that had been. He had sat in the tree for quite a few nights and watched her at her play.

All that was left now was a tree stump.

Unlike Gail, he could enter the house without requiring assistance. A house was hostile until he was invited in, and it would have barred him. But Sarah had taken care of that.

'I wish the goblins would come and take you away right now.'

She had said it. And she might have bested him at his own game but the words had been spoken and he had been invited.

He looked around her room while he tested the air. But even if her disappearance had been related to magical persons, there was no trace left.

He walked slowly into the dark hallway, and looked in on Karen and Robert. He stood at their bedside and thought how much older they looked, though he was himself two hundred years their senior. He tried to imagine how they had explained everything to themselves.

Did they know their son was getting goblins in his bedroom? Could they believe it?

He thought not. Humans were petty creatures. They lived such short lives. They lived such closed lives.

Toby's room was dark as well. The door was closed tight against anything that decided to come up the stairs but it opened without a sound.

Jareth entered into it, and began to smile. It should have been hard to see Toby in the darkness but the moon shone full into the room. It cut squares into the floor and illuminated the blond hair on the light pillow.

He stood at the bedside again and looked down with a pang. Even in sleep, the boy looked exhausted. He wondered objectively if he were very much to blame and thought perhaps that Sarah would say he was.

Without thinking, he reached out and shook Toby's shoulder.

"Wake up," he said.


	28. First Impressions

It took a few minutes to get those blue eyes to focus, and the first expression in them was fear.

Jareth took a step back and placed his finger on his lips. He fully expected that Toby would be shocked, and no doubt terrified, at the sudden appearance of strange men at his bedside.

Toby said thickly, "Oh God, not another one," and sat up.

Jareth frowned slightly. "Another one?"

"Your friend was here a few nights ago," Toby yawned. He swung his legs out of bed, stretched and huddled the blanket up closer around his waist. "Who the hell are you? What do you want?"

"Some answers."

"I don't know anything. I don't have anything. I don't even…"

The moonlight was proving to be very illuminating that night. Toby broke off his whispered mutterings when he caught sight of a flash of metal hanging around the stranger's neck. The chain Sarah had given him.

"That's mine," he said, and almost got up.

Jareth picked up the medallion and said, "I beg to differ. It is very much mine."

"How did you get it?"

"Toby, things are a little complicated. Do you think we could have the lights on?"

Jareth turned away and switched them on. That done, he went to the windows and thrust them open. He quite thought he heard a sound of denial behind him. Then he turned again and looked around the room.

"Ah," he said, and spotted a chair. He appropriated it and sat down. Stretched both legs out and crossed them neatly at the ankle.

And smiled.

"Now, Toby," he said gently, "I'll have your questions."

Toby opened and shut his mouth. Looked at the window and looked at the door. Looked back at Jareth. "Who are you?" he settled on.

"My name is Jareth."

"What do you want?"

"Some answers from you."

"Answers? From me? I don't have any answers. The only thing I had was that stupid chain and you've got that now so fine! Keep it! I don't know anything. I didn't see anything. Just leave me alone."

Jareth shifted slightly into a more comfortable position. "Are you afraid of me, Toby?"

"How do you know my name?"

"You gave it to me." Jareth waited until Toby looked suitably disbelieving. "Along with a book."

"What?"

"Toby, don't you recognize me?"

"No," Toby said bluntly, and edged further towards the door on his bed. Tried to seem inconspicuous.

He wanted very badly to yell for his dad, in the childlike belief that daddy always made things better, but a snide voice in his head asked him what exact help he thought his father could be. The last time, it reminded him darkly, there'd been a knife.

"You came to my shop with your book. You wanted it repaired for your sister. I heard about Sarah, Toby. What can you tell me about that?"

"John? Why are you dressed like that?"

Jareth stifled a laugh. "I was John. I no longer am. You may have the name if you want it."

Toby stared at him with absolute bewilderment in his eyes. "What?"

"I am not John. I was John. At least, you called me John."

"Who are you?" Toby echoed again. This time overtly fearful.

The haze of deep sleep had wafted away and the man in the strange clothes sitting in the chair was cast by the moonlight as a villain. Oh, yes, Toby remembered those eyes. Eerie and unmatched. Toby knew the peculiar shade of hair and the general sharpness of those features. Even the voice, though a voice was ephemeral, was the same.

But the whole was not. He had never seen anyone who looked like that.

Strange familiarity.

He gulped and looked pleadingly to his door. He wanted to shout, but his throat was dry. And fear for his father kept him silent. What would Robert do against this? Toby didn't know who he was. Or even what he was! How was Robert to protect him against the unknown?

He thought of Sarah and the band around his chest tightened to almost unbearable.

"You took Sarah," he gasped.

"No."

"You did! You came and took Sarah, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't. I was John then. I didn't remember Sarah." Jareth sighed and cast an eye at the sky outside. He could smell morning and his pulse started to quicken. "I don't have the time for this. Do you know anything about Sarah's disappearance?"

"There was blood."

It was all happening in double vision. Toby could see Jareth. He was looking right at him. But he could see in his mind's eye a blue carpet with a patch of blood. He could smell the acrid stench of copper and salt. He could see the mirror with its smashed surface. The glass shards sharp and vicious as they lay scattered on the floor. All of them somehow reflecting those peculiar eyes.

"Sarah's blood?" Jareth asked intently.

"Yes," Toby said.

"Was she alone in the house." That would be important.

"Yes," Toby said, "I was in school. Mom and Dad were at work. Why d'you want to know? What did she do?"

Jareth had a brief image of Sarah as he had last seen her. Thinking she owned the world as she broke him.

No, not broken; merely lost.

"She made a mistake," he settled on, and rose fluidly to his feet. "I must leave. You will sleep, Toby. And you will wake up in the certain knowledge that you dreamed all of this. There are no goblins in your bedroom. No men following you. You are troubled. You are upset. Is there anything that upset you today, Toby?"

It was night, Toby decided, maybe it really was just a dream. The world was dangerously sideways but if it were just a dream, it would be okay soon. He clutched at the thought and put a hand to his head to hold it there. He frowned in perplexity.

"Greg kissed me," he blurted out.

Jareth started and raised an eyebrow. "Greg? Your friend?"

"Yeah."

"I see." Jareth began to smile, his natural curiosity waking up. "Did you want him to?"

"No!" Toby looked aghast. And rather disgusted.

"Ah. Perhaps that was it then. All of this," Jareth swept his arm grandiosely to include the whole room, "Is a dream. Go to sleep, Toby. Tomorrow you will be fine."

And it was really just that simple, Jareth knew. He had memories in his head of the countless scores of times that he had been forced to employ the same tactic. The Goblin King was too surreal an experience, and most children would swear blind that he had been a fantasy scant hours after looking in his eyes and touching his hand. Those who didn't were soon driven mad with the knowledge.

He felt some small sympathy for Toby, who stared at him as if he were a ghost, and who was so clearly troubled already.

He watched silently as Toby crept into bed, curled up tight in his blankets, knees to chest and arms wrapped around himself. He watched those eyes blink suspiciously at him and then squeeze shut as the boy obviously told himself it would all be gone if he didn't look at it.

He left the room quickly, and walked downstairs. Slipped out of the front door and went around to stand beside the old tree stump.

He breathed slowly, letting the feel of morning filter into his bloodstream. He followed trails in his mind, probing and discarding on whim and fancy as he exercised a power he hadn't felt in fourteen years.

His lips curled as he found an orange life; followed it waveringly across the spheres but baulked at the sudden steep incline of ice and hate. Sheridan Tama had returned to Edur, then.

He came back to earth with a bump and had to catch himself before he fell over.

He was clearly rusty at it.

Jareth grimaced in self-disgust and clenched his fists beside him. He was about to give a petulant mental jump when suddenly he stopped. A thought occurred.

Could he simply return pick up where he left off? The worlds changed in fourteen years. He had to accept that. But until he knew how, it might be better not to return in a melodramatic flourish.

At least, not until he had full possession of his powers. Any battles after that could be fought and won with equanimity.

Besides, there were a few last-minutes things he could always find to do Aboveground.

He looked up and down. He looked sideways. And then he looked at the tree stump. He hopped experimentally up onto it and twirled. He pulled his cape around himself and in a burst of adrenaline he shifted.

The white owl took off across the skies and the sheer luxury of flight was enough for Jareth just then.


	29. Reintroduction

The war room in the tower had been prepared for some years now, but the gathered bands of men had grown so used to Edur's summons that they paid little mind to the highly alert nature of the situation.

Instead they sat around, talking in low murmurs about lives and training, the past, the last campaign and the gossip they had gleaned. One of them lit a cigarette and rated the ladies who had been allowed to stay in the more civilized parts of the Fortress.

He had reached the comical part of his monologue when the door burst open.

They startled, even the most battle-hardened of them, and the look on Edur's face was not given to reassurances.

He stared around at each in turn, nostrils flaring as if to scent them, holding in his hands a heavy-looking burden of a roughly round shape wrapped in dark blue cloth.

Behind him, Drake came in and shut the door noiselessly. The tension on his face only made matters worse.

Edur walked forward and set his burden on the table. He set it down carefully. And then took a firm hold on the fold of cloth near to him and pulled.

The severed head spun out of its covering and came to rest in the centre of the table.

"That, generals," Edur said ominously, "Is the fate of my last plan."

No one said a word. They could only stare between Edur and the head, wondering who it was and what the poor bastard had done to incur his punishment. And wonder whether uneasily whether they might not be next.

"Would any of you prefer to oppose me now? Before we start business, you understand, when I won't have the time to listen to anything you fools have to say. Would any of you like to stand up now and leave this room? You might get as far as the exit before I have you shot."

A nasty smile.

"Well? Laugh, generals. I must have my joke."

The man with the cigarette started a round of high-pitched laughter.

The sound bubbled up for a few seconds and then vanished, swallowed in the dread that began to push the easy camaraderie out of the room. Drake could almost see it, fleeing through the windows and under the door. Through the keyhole even. Anything to escape.

But the six men clustered around the table were caught.

For eight decades Edur had built his team. He had ensnared his helpers, roped in his volunteers, captured his friends. He had done that work. And now the spiders were caught in the web of their king and there would be no escape for them.

"Sheridan Tama, generals. You may have heard the name, no?" Edur looked around at them, suddenly all smiles and warmth.

General Felix Peregrin spoke up, mastering the unsoldierly urge to hide under the table- "One of your agents, Sire."

"Yes, yes. What a quaint way to put it, Peregrin, yes. One of my agents."

"His eyes have been removed," one of the men blurted out.

Everyone held their breathes but Edur only nodded, as if the observation pleased him. "Yes, I did that," he said conversationally, "To teach him a lesson."

Peregrin swallowed thickly. "No doubt he deserved it, Sire. What did he do wrong?"

"Everything. Possibly nothing. Generals, the Goblin King has returned."

A swift murmur of shock rippled through the group.

Drake didn't relax just yet. His lord had an unaccountable taste for retaining anger in the most unusual ways. Edur was not an easy person to read and if someone were to die, there might well be an elaborate charade played out before the verdict was given.

Sheridam Tama had been seen by a doctor. Bathed and fed. Wined. Given one of the whores from the barracks. And then he had been taken to a very pretty room when the sun was highest and allowed to look at the sky one last time before his eyes were burned out with hot irons. His tongue went next. And then his throat.

Drake swallowed thickly as he sat down gingerly at his desk and got on with the task of collating Edur's latest plans. However, he kept one ear just slightly open.

"The Labyrinth is off the table, then," someone was saying.

"Impossible to take it now. The Goblin King must be back at his post already."

"We have guards there," someone else snapped, hand flat and gesturing angrily, "My fifth regiment was posted in the Goblin City to keep order while we ciphoned. My Lord, we can ill afford to lose them now. Not if we still intend a war!"

Edur held up a broad palm for silence. "Be calm, generals. I have one question, and one question only, to ask you." He collected the dark blue cloth and slung it dashingly over his shoulder. "If a cow will provide us milk, why ask the crow to steal it?"

Felix cast a fascinated eye at the severed head and then glanced intently at Drake. The latter shook his head slightly as if to deny any knowledge, or any complicity.

Edur left the room with an old song on his lips, a little hop and jump disconcerting his fellow soldiers to the extent that they stayed silent for five minutes after the door closed, sweat cooling on their backs and brows as momentary relief flooded their system.

"Tama was very promising… a pity he was worthless… good riddance to a bad soldier… what about the boy… why did the spell take so long… why did… how did… when…"

"The boy must have been Key."

"Obvious, Calway. The Key focuses the rebirth spell. What I'd like to know is why it took so bloody long."

Edmond Weir leaned forward, his pointed beard almost touching the table as he tapped the side of his nose conspiringly, "They say The Doer arranged matters for him."

"Eh?" Calway snapped, "Speak up and be clear. All this damned muttering in corners."

Weir rolled his protuberant eyes but spoke louder. "I can't be clearer. They say Edur arranged his absence."

"How?" Calway demanded.

"Perhaps the Goblin King is in Edur's pay," someone suggested laconically.

Some of them looked suspiciously at Drake, who had his head bent and was absorbed into his document. The others merely scoffed.

"The Goblin King? After what happened to his family in the last campaign? Never."

"But if the Goblin King has returned," an old man said slowly, "Then what of the girl?

Felix Peregrin, once King of Geronodine, rose to his feet and left as the murmurs grew speculative. He didn't cope well with speculation, being uncomfortable with the ready familiarity of those he used to consider as low persons. In his day, he had sat upon a throne and his councillors had brought him certainties and facts. They had brought him plans to implement or discard.

They had not, nor had he ever liked them to, deal in speculation.

Still, Geronodine was long gone, now annexed by the King of the Mountains, and Geronodine's last king languished here in the Fortress.

Peregrin told himself that he was no longer bitter about it.

He went to his suite of rooms to find his wife, who was waiting for him. From the look on her face as she rose to greet him with a punctilious kiss he knew she had already received the news.

Carolyne was the backbone of her husband's rule.

"Edur will want the boy," she said immediately.

"What? Why?"

"Sit down, my dear. You've survived the meeting in any case. I tried to send warning but I suppose I was too late? Hm. Edur works quickly. Yes, he will want the boy. The boy is still Key."

"Not at all. The Goblin King has already returned."

"Yes, dear, he has, but the Goblin King has not ascended." She raised her eyebrows expressively and then nodded when realization dawned on her husband's face. "Ah, now you see. The boy is still Key."

"But the Goblin King…"

"Has not returned yet. I would have known."

They held their gazes for a moment, and then their eyes moved as one to the door leading into Carolyne's sewing room.

Peregrin cleared his throat and spoke in their standard code- "Has she **not** written then?"

"No. It seems she was up all night. The **dark**," and here the word was stressed, "The **dark** lasts very long for her when she's so upset, poor woman."

"I wonder **why**."

"I suppose we'll never know."

"That necklace, my dear, the one your sister last gave you. **Do you still have it**?"

"**Yes, of course.**"

"**And you keep it safe, I hope.** You're so careless with your jewels."

"**It is safe**," she acknowledged, "The clasp was giving trouble. **The crystal**, you know."

Peregrin went white and made a swift movement with his head. He went to his wife and put his arms around her. Kissed her long neck and her plump shoulders.

"Quiet or you'll get us killed," he whispered urgently against her skin.

"Tortured, more like," she whispered back.

Peregrin thought of Sheridan Tama's bloodied eye sockets and severed head.

He kissed his wife again and they gripped each other's hand tight, seeking and giving what small comfort they could. Years ago they had ceased to be lovers, but they remained co-conspirators. And in Edur's castle, the latter was the only way they would survive.

After all, if Edur knew that they still had the crystal…

That night Peregrin went to his wife's bed and he pulled back the covers. He got into the bed beside her and held her close.

She had been crying, he knew that. When he kissed her cheek tenderly, he tasted the salt.

Under the blankets, he moved his hands over her familiar shape to find her hand. And he pressed the capsule into it.

"For comfort," he said.

Carolyne squeezed her eyes shut and let him kiss her and cuddle her a little more. She wasn't surprised when he made perfunctory love to her. She simply lay there and let him. It was a cover for them- the behaviour of a husband and wife. And truly she didn't often mind it. She had another man for pleasure, just as he had his mistress for his.

They had stopped finding pleasure in each other when their daughter was taken. And all they had left of that warmth was a pair of poison capsules and the crystal that been exchanged for their daughter.

In another part of the castle, Edur lingered over the remains of his meal, picking almonds out of the dish with his fingers as he relaxed.

"And what do you think of my plan?" he asked.

Sarah looked at him, green eyes level and reserved as she contemplated the idea one last time. "I do not know if I could run the Labyrinth again and win," she said.

"Not even if I put a cohort on your trail to assist you?"

"I… I have this feeling," she said slowly, "I have the feeling that Jareth will have planned for that."

"But you will try." It was no longer a question.

Sarah nodded once and turned her eyes dutifully back to her plate, as obedient and meek as she had been trained to be.


End file.
